Driving Instructor Training Industry
Whilst being a driving instructor is an enjoyable and rewarding career, it is important that you are not fooled into buying a training course for the wrong reasons. Beware many driving schools advertising job opportunities are really driving instructor training companies in disguise who make most if not all their income from selling overpriced training of a poor quality. Some companies are experts at getting you to part with your money in just a few days from your initial call. It is easy to be fooled, these companies do look very credible and the proposition unbelievably tempting.
Some driving instructor training companies try to fool you into believing the opportunity is really just like a standard job where the income is guaranteed. They will say they will supply you with as many hours as you want so that you can earn what you want leaving you to believe the supply of hours is guaranteed when really it isn't. When they explain how your income is earned the franchise fee is made to look as if it is just part of the wages calculation rather than a fee that has to be paid whether they supply you with work or not. The purpose of this is to give you the false impression it is just like a normal job in which you will earn £30,000 per year or whatever figure is quoted.
Such companies may also make it appear that you cannot really fail to qualify with their training because you get as much training as is needed to pass. However, the training they decide you need may not be what you expected or as good as what others clearly state and any extra training to what they initially decide to allocate might only be provided as and when the training provider can fit it in. Therefore the training hours may seem unlimited but are in fact limited by the training provider's ability to supply and may therefore not be timely or effective or fit in with your own schedules. Hence, you are led to believe you cannot possible lose out for a small investment of a few thousand pounds you are buying a near guaranteed income of £30,000 per year for life. And just to be certain you will pass you are assessed to make sure you are suitable - an assessment no one appears to fail!
This problem was recently highlighted on the Trevor MacDonald ITV Tonight news programme on 27th March 2009 entitled "How to blow your redundancy money". Although Red driving school was the only company featured on this programme in this regard there are others who operate in a similar manner. Before you invest time and money on training it is important that you are able to distinguish between those who genuinely want to recruit you and those who simply want to enroll you onto an expensive training course. The less a company discloses and the more guarantees a company appears to offer the more likely they are to fall into the latter category.
Due to ignorance and mis-information thousands of people each year buy driving instructor training courses from such companies. Unfortunately more often than not they go on to waste the money they have spent or end up with a large debt to repay.
The type of misleading information that can be given by some training companies is also covered in the FAQ’s section of this website which deals with the common questions asked and the less than truthful answers often given.