At my uni you have to go on a teaching course if taking seminars. As part of the corse you have an optional portfolio to complete and if you do so satisfactorily then you get some sort of a qualifiation from the higher education academy. The trouble is the coursework is all dull and would take time away from my project trying to complete it. My question is, does anyone know whether this will help with getting an academic job post PhD? (which is pretty much the only reason i'd do the portfolio)

sometimes I wish I was never given optional work to do. It's so easy to go down the not doing it route!

a lot of people do seem to get this,the librarians here do it too - if you can spare the time it could be useful to you later, the one thing it might give you straight away is a bit of help with planning and confidence in delivering your material, and it will look quite good on a cv

Yeah, I think so too Joyce