work paying for course, time off?

[reasonstobecheerful]

My son is being funded by his employer to gain a professional qualification relevant to his work, it's a 3 year part time course while he works full time, there's a lot of home study and it also requires him to be away from work for a few days (2 or 3) probably every 6 to 8 weeks. My question is should the days he has to be away from work to attend lectures count as a normal working day or should he have to 'make them up'? Hope this makes sense. Have tried to google but can mumsnet wisdom help out? Thanks.

It depends on his arrangement with his employer. Quite often if the employer is funding they will expect employees to make the time back

I think it depends, but in my experience, the time for study was 'normal work time' and then at exam time there was additional study leave which didn't impact on holiday allowance....

It depends. My old employer gave me time off to attend college. My current employer has only recently introduced such a policy.

As other posters have said it depends on the agreement with employer. My company allows up to 7 days per subject but employee must use 3 days holiday and the rest is study leave. My previous company gave all the time as study leave (accounting practices)

Ask your son to speak to his line manager or HR about a study policy. These type of things vary massively from organisation to organisation.

IME it's best to "iron" out the details now, before he starts the course because he won't want to be negotiating time off during exams or assignment hand in dates.

When I did my professional qualification, it was 'agreed' at interview stage i could have half a day off. Once I started, the Co' tried to get me to take the evening course over 40 mile away two nights a week I refused of course. It was at that point they put in a proper agreement (working in HR I was surprised it wasn't there from the beginning )

You might find your DS will get his attendance at college/Uni as part of normal working hours, but study outside of those hours will be his time. Normally exam days off plus 1 or 2 extra days is the "norm"

Hth

Thanks everyone for your input, it seems at the moment he is having to make up every day he spends away from work at college or doing exams. This doesn't seem right when they sent him on the course to start with. He won't rock the boat however. It's a small business or rather a franchise (for a nationwide optical chain) small staff, manager is a 'mate' kinda thing and he's a loyal soul and sees it as him getting a valuable degree course funded by them hence why he won't question it too much :-( Awkward. Thanks though.

Can he use holidays instead of having to make up the time?

Is he being paid a reasonable salary? When I was training to be an accountant I would get sent to college for maybe up to 4 weeks a year which was 'given' to me, but actually my salary was pretty low reflecting the time I actually worked .

And he will be professionally qualified at the end so is worthwhile?

Not sure about holidays. Pay is pretty low at the moment, retail pay and corresponding hours, he works weekends on a rota etc but when qualified it will indeed be very worthwhile so I can kind of see why he is sucking it up but he really doesn't actually know his rights as regards time off for study in this situation. He's loving his job which counts for a lot. Thanks again.

Well he should get 28 days holiday (5.6 weeks) inc bank holidays if working full time so he needs to make sure he uses these!
Best of luck to him

My employer gives time or fees for relevant qualifications, but not both, unless you are on our internal Foundation Degree scheme.

If it is an apprenticeship time at college is part of your work and you are paid for this. However, those of us who use the apprenticeship course, but don't claim the support from the government and pay more than the apprenticeship pittance can make other arrangements.

This completely depends on his employers policy and terms, which should have been clear when they agreed between them for him to attend the course.

I think your son has the right attitude - the employer are funding him to do a qualification which will make him very marketable. Why would you expect they would also give him time off as well?