Thousands of Australian uni students will now receive $331 a week for practical placements. But not everyone's happy

The Guardian

7 hours ago

Thousands of university and Tafe students will receive financial support to complete mandatory placements for the first time from Tuesday, in a major win for stakeholders who have spent years pushing the commonwealth to address 'placement poverty'.
But not all students are eligible for the payments, and others say the federal government hasn't gone far enough to address a cost-of-living crisis facing young people.
Here's what you need to know.
From 1 July, eligible domestic students completing teaching, nursery, midwifery and social work degrees will be able to access $331.65 per week during mandatory practical placements, benchmarked to the single Austudy rate.
It's equivalent to about $60 per day, or $8 an hour.
The education minister, Jason Clare, said the payment would 'give people who have signed up to do some of the most important jobs in this country a bit of extra help to get the qualifications they need'.
The federal government estimated about 68,000 higher education students and around 5,000 VET students would be able to access the means-tested support each year.
Students would have to prove they weren't earning more than $1,500 per week and had worked more than 15 hours in a job outside of university prior to starting the placement to access the payments. International students have also been excluded.
The payments were a recommendation of the Universities Accord, handed down to the commonwealth last year.
The blueprint for the future of higher education found providing financial support for placements was 'essential' to ensure students could complete their degrees 'without falling into poverty', and to stem high dropout rates.
Clare said he had met students who told him 'they can afford to go to uni, but they can't afford to do the prac'.
'Placement poverty is a real thing,' he said. 'Some students say prac means they have to give up their part-time job, and that they don't have the money to pay the bills.'
The accord recommended the government provide support for 'key industries' including nursing, care and teaching. Clare said that was why these three areas were the focus of initial reform.
The announcement has received widespread attention. When the prime minister took to TikTok in mid-June to tout paid practical placements, it was his most watched video since joining the platform, raking in 1.3m views.
But his audience was split: some praised the PM for taking a 'step in the right direction'; others questioned why their courses had missed out.
The Greens, Students Against Placement Poverty (SAPP) and the Australian Medical Students Association (AMSA) have urged the federal government to expand the eligibility to all students completing placements, and to increase the payments to at least the minimum wage.
A range of degrees that also require hundreds of hours of mandatory placements – including veterinary science, medicine, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, paramedicine and psychology – have been excluded from the payments.
Deputy leader for the Greens and higher education spokesperson, Mehreen Faruqi, called the policy 'overly complex, poorly targeted and far too stingy to make a real difference'.
Siena Hopper, a spokesperson for SAPP, accused 'a package initially envisioned to provide a living wage to students undertaking tertiary placement' of being 'largely reduced to another bureaucratic hurdle'.
'The absurdity of means testing is clear in comparison to longstanding trade apprenticeship arrangements,' she said. 'No student should have to prove they are worthy of payment for their labour.'
AMSA said in a statement it was 'disheartening' that medical students, who are required to complete 2,000 hours of full-time placements, had been left out, adding the 'intense' study requirements were causing burnout and university dropouts.
'Like all placement students, medical students are a part of the workforce,' AMSA said. 'Nothing exemplifies this more than the recent NSW doctor strikes which saw medical students actively called upon to fill the shoes of junior doctors.'
The reforms come off the back of a series of changes to higher education, including wiping $3bn in student debt, the establishment of a student ombudsman and fee-free Tafe places.
Clare said he would remain 'directly focused' on students in Labor's current term of government.
'The next step in the reform program, big structural change, is around fixing the funding of our universities. You'll see that roll out next year, including demand-driven funding for equity students and a real needs-based funding approach to universities.'
The new Australian Tertiary Education Commission, beginning its work from Tuesday, will be tasked with looking at funding arrangements, including tackling the widely critiqued jobs ready graduate scheme, which increased fees for some courses, including humanities, to fund cuts incentivising students to study teaching, nursing, maths, science and engineering. Around five years since its introduction, arts degrees are now $50,000.