Student social workers should receive minimum wage for practicums

Student social workers should be paid the minimum wage when carrying out their mandatory work experience, says a new report.

The paper calls for federal government funding to pay social work students for practicums.

Student social workers should be paid the minimum wage for the 1000 hours in total they must spend gaining workplace experience to obtain qualification, according to a new report.

In a paper for the Australian Council of Heads of Social Work Education, which represents university deans in the field, think tank Per Capita says the work experience requirement is contributing to a low completion rate for social work degrees when demand for social workers is increasing.

The paper calls for federal government funding to pay students the minimum wage – currently $23.23 an hour – plus superannuation for their practicum work that would be channelled through the organisations that host the students.

“To ensure the monies are paid directly to eligible students and do not put the host organisation at risk of being expected to create an ongoing, paid position beyond the duration of the placement, the payment would be best made as a stipend, rather than a salary,” the proposal says.

Because the students would not be in ongoing employment they would not have any leave entitlements but they would have protections of the Fair Work Act.

Implementing the recommendations of the Per Capita report, titled A Thousand Hours for Free? Ending Unpaid Placements in Social Work Education, would cost $91m annually to cover 7000 students for 500 hours per year.

The proposal follows calls for students to be paid for compulsory practicums in many degrees – including teaching, early childhood education and nursing – particularly because students are usually unable to continue part-time work while they do the mandatory work to gain professional experience in their field.

Last year in a white paper, Working Future, the federal government said it would examine ways to ease financial hardship for students doing unpaid practicum placements in caring professions.

The recent Universities Accord report called on the federal government to work with tertiary education providers, state and territory governments, industry, business and unions to introduce financial support for students’ unpaid mandatory work placements