Article 4 Prescribed Period
For the purposes of these Rules, subject as hereafter in this rule provided, the expression “prescribed period” shall mean—
in the case of a person who, immediately after ceasing to be employed in teaching service or local government employment became engaged in national service, a period of six months after the date of termination of the national service;
in the case of a person to whom section 6 of the Act of 1948 has become applicable, a period of five years after the date on which he ceased to be employed in local government employment or such longer period as the Minister of Housing and Local Government may in any particular case allow; and
in the case of any other person, a period of twelve months after the date on which he ceased to be employed in teaching service or local government employment.
The Secretary of State in the case of a person entering teaching service and the fund authority in the case of a person entering local government employment may, with the agreement of the other, extend the period of six months or twelve months, whichever is appropriate, specified in paragraph (1).
Subject as in paragraph (4) provided—
in reckoning the period of six months and twelve months specified in paragraph (1) no account shall be taken of any period spent by a person on a course of study or training which he undertook after leaving his former employment; and
if a person left his former employment in order to undertake a course of study or training and on completion of that course became engaged in national service, he shall be deemed for the purposes of paragraph (1) to have left his former employment at the time when he completed the said course of study or training.
The provisions of paragraph (3) shall not apply to a person who in his new employment is in local government employment unless the authority employing him are satisfied, or to a person who in his new employment is in teaching service unless the Secretary of State is satisfied, that by reason of his having undertaken the said course of study or training he is better fitted for the duties of his new employment.