Federal Government to pay university students for work experience in teaching, nursing and social work

‘They don’t have the money to pay the bills.’ Why taxpayers will give university students cash to undertake months of mandatory work experience placements as part of their degrees.

Student nurses will be paid for their practicum placements at university, from July 1 next year. Picture: iStock

Trainee teachers, nurses and ­social workers will be paid up to $8307 to learn on the job in schools and hospitals, as the Albanese government tackles student poverty stoked by high inflation and housing shortages.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare will announce on Monday that 68,000 university students and 5000 nursing students at TAFE will be paid $319.50 a week during their clinical and professional placement periods.

The new “prac payments” will apply to degrees and diplomas in the fields of teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work, which are relatively low-paid, female-dominated and crippled by worker shortages.

Childcare has been left out of the paid prac system until the federal government assesses the potential for rorting by private providers that offer training courses to their own employees.

To start from July 1 next year, the means-tested student payments will be pegged to the single rate of Austudy.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare says some university students are too poor to undertake the mandatory unpaid practicum placements as part of their degree. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Swift

High dropout rates from university degrees in nursing, teaching and social work have been pinned to “placement poverty’’ ­because students cannot afford to drop their part-time jobs so they can undertake months of man­datory full-time and unpaid work experience.

The $319.50 “prac payment’’ will total $5112 for trainee teachers for a typical 16-week practicum, $6390 for student nurses during a 20-week placement, and $8281 for students undertaking 26 weeks of placements for social work.

“This will 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 that they need,’’ Mr Clare said.

“Placement poverty is a real thing – some students say prac means they have to give up their part-time job, and they don’t have the money to pay the bills.’’

Federal Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Connor said the payment would support nursing students who have to pay extra costs, such as uniforms, travel, temporary accommodation and childcare during mandatory placements.

The prac payment comes on the heels of the government’s announcement it will wipe $3bn from outstanding HECS-HELP debts for more than three million university graduates and students in next week’s federal budget.

Graduates with an average debt of $26,500 will have $1200 wiped from outstanding their student loans, known as the Higher Education Contribution Scheme or Higher Education Loan ­Program.

Recent university graduates with debts averaging some $45,000 will have $2000 wiped from their outstanding loans.

Students borrow their tuition fees through the HECS-HELP loans, which are then repaid gradually through the tax system once they start earning more than the minimum wage.

The loans are interest-free, but indexed every year in line with the rate of inflation, which resulted in debts ballooning by an unprecedented 7.1 per cent this year.

The federal government will use next week’s budget to cap the indexation rate so it will be calculated as the lower of the consumer price index (7.1 per cent this year), or the wage price index (which was 3.2 per cent).

The reform will be backdated to June 1 last year – effectively wiping out half of this year’s increase to student debts.

Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy hailed the government’s decision to make the HECS-HELP system “simpler and fairer’’.

“We know cost-of-living is a factor in people’s decision to start and finish university and this relief will give people more confidence in pursuing a degree while providing much-needed support for those already paying off a HELP debt,’’ he said.

Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson described the reform as “a Band-Aid to a bullet wound’’.

“Under Labor, student debts will still increase by a crippling 11.1 per cent (over three years), driving up the average loan by $2800,’’ she said.