How are students affording uni placements?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is the Daily Oz.
This is the Daily Oz.
This is the Daily Oz.
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MUSIC
Good morning and welcome to The Daily Oz. It's Friday the 24th of July. I'm Zara Seidler.
I'm Elliot Lurie.
The Albanese government has announced it will extend a paid placement program for 10 new categories of students, including those studying clinical psychology, physiotherapy and speech therapy. In today's podcast, we're going to speak about what this paid placement program has looked like in the past, what the reality for some of these students looks like in the present and what could change in the future.
Zara, this is such a big story. I remember, you know, not that long ago when I was at uni, my friends who were studying stuff like nursing, for example, would have these unpaid placements that would just go on forever. And during that time, not only could they not work, they weren't getting any money from the placement either. And then still having to do stuff like pay rent.
Yeah.
That's changed a bit in the time since I was at uni.
What is the new paid placement program announcement and who hosts this episode?
Yes, not to age you.
It wasn't that long ago, relax. But we have some more updates now. Do you want to maybe set the scene of where we were before today?
Yeah, of course. I guess as a starting point, did you have to do any unpaid placements at uni?
Yes.
Okay, so you studied media. I'm going to go ahead and presume. What did you have to do as part of it?
I went to Channel 7 and I worked there unpaid for credits for a subject.
So interesting. So I didn't study media. I didn't have to do any unpaid placements. Oh, good for you. Flex, that's the end of the podcast. No, but I guess I had always heard about this from friends. I'd never personally had to experience it. And just learning, I think, especially as it pertains, as you said, to health professions. The incredible burden that these placements have had on these students has been well documented for a very long time. But to answer your question, if I set the scene, students enrolled in nursing degrees have to complete 800 hours in a clinic or a hospital. Crazy. Midwives need 1,600 hours and, of course, in some cases students have to live and work remotely for part of their course, especially for medical degrees.
So these are really significant steps. placements. Some of them are even full time. And as you said, many students can't then get a job. I mean, it's just not practical to then have to get a job outside of that. And so until last year, these students weren't getting paid at all. None of these students who are experiencing this were getting paid. This was recognised as quite a major issue. It was called placement poverty and the government was recommended to do something about it. And so they did. And so from July last year, the government introduced paid placements for very specific professions or for specific studies, I should say. So those studying nursing, midwifery, teaching and social work were They could, if they were enrolled in those courses, get $331.65 per week while doing the mandatory prac placements as part of their degree.
And then that amount, I'm going to use another really specific number, went up to $338.60 this year. Did you say per week?
Yes, per week. That doesn't sound like a lot of money for a week's work.
It's not and this is actually, I mean, this is a perfect segue. This is one of the things that some of the students who had already accessed this scheme had complained about or I guess just pointed to, the fact that you can't get any other income if you're working full-time or it's difficult to and $330 a week if you're working at a full-time rate is very minimal.
And that would be the pre-tax figure, right?
Yeah, that's pre-tax. So we asked TDA's audience to tell us a bit about what it's been like if you are one of those students who can access it, which again, there are so many who haven't been able to. So these are the people who are considered the lucky ones, I guess, in inverted commas.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:17
2
What is the new paid placement program announcement and who hosts this episode?
1:17–10:45
3
How many placement hours do nursing, midwifery and medical students typically need and what was placement poverty?
10:45–15:47
4
How much were eligible students paid under the initial pilot and why do students say it isn't enough?
15:47–18:26
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The Daily Aus
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