Social work and teaching students left $21,000 worse off due to university placement requirements

Struggling to make ends meet through a bar job, Sydney woman Grayson Smith is one of the many teaching and social work students in financial stress.

Onerous compulsory placements required by social work and teaching degrees leave students up to $21,000 worse off at the completion of their degrees, with students unable to secure enough part-time to fund rising expenses amid a cost-of-living crisis.

Undergraduate teachers are required to complete about 80 days of in-school placement, while people studying social work must complete 1000 hours of on-the-job training in order obtain their degrees.

In analysis from Unions NSW, this totals to up to $21,000 once factoring the minimum wage of $21.38 per hour.

Grayson Smith, a 27-year-old fourth year social work student at the University of Sydney, says her Monday to Friday workplace training requirements means she can only earn up to $650 a week through roughly 20 hours of pub work.

Despite essentially working seven days a week, she is only left with $150 to $250 once she deducts her rent and basic expenses like transport.

“I’m 27 years old and I have $250 in my bank account,” she told NCA NewsWire.

Grayson Smith is completing a Bachelor of Social Work at University of Sydney. Picture: Supplied

“It’s financially distressing. Even trying to go to the doctor, or get a flu shot as a placement requirement becomes something I have to think about.”

Currently undergoing a four-month placement at Westmead Hospital, Ms Smith says her stress is compounded by the juggle of balancing her placement and work.

“I’m not going to have a day off in four months. On Mondays, I leave my house at 6.50am to get to placement and my shift at the pub ends at 10pm,” she said.

“A lot of the people I work with talk about financial and housing stresses and it’s absolutely ironic that I’m sitting with clients and walking alongside them through this process, and talking about finances when I’m in the same precarious situation”

Unions NSW Secretary Mark Morey said it left student “burnt out” before they even entered the workforce.

Supported by the union peak body, Students Against Placement Poverty will initiate a protest from 8am to 12pm on Wednesday, joining

In 2022, a survey commissioned by the Australian Council of Heads of School of Social Work commissioned found 33.7 per cent of students lost their entire income due to placement commissions, while 25 per cent lost up to 75 per cent of their normal wage.

79 per cent of the surveyed 700 respondents said they knew of students who had to defer their studies, or withdraw from their degrees entirely because of the placement requirements.

Unions NSW said completion rates of social work degrees had also fallen from 58 per cent from 2005-11 to 50 per cent between 2016-21, while data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics had also dropped from 70 per cent in 2011 to 53 per cent in 2021.

Degrees in teaching require students to undertake about 80 days of placement, while students completing an undergraduate in social work complete up to 80 hours of placement. Picture: iStock

Mr Morey said the government could not afford to lose more social workers, or teachers, with both industries suffering staffing shortfalls.

“The essential worker shortage crisis starts with unpaid internships,” he said.

“There are about 15,000 social worker jobs on Seek right now and more than 18,000 for teachers. We desperately need people in these key industries.

“At the same time, we’re asking the next generation of workers to forfeit up to $20,000. It is utterly perverse.”

Students Against Placement Poverty spokesperson and UNSW social work student Isaac Wattenberg said his placement requirements have left him in financial distress, and reliant on youth allowance payments and his partner’s disability pension.

Mr Wattenberg will be one of dozens of students staging a protest at the University of NSW between 8am to 12pm on Wednesday, which will be joined by a wider strike staged by the National Tertiary Education Union.

Currently completing a placement with Unions NSW, employers are also unable to offer students payment as this would void the degree requirements.

“My rent was recently raised by $160 a fortnight. This has put me in rent insecurity, financial distress and sitting well below the poverty line for my placement,” Mr Wattenberg said.

“This story is replicated again and again among my fellow students. It is not sustainable.”

Originally published as Social work and teaching students left $21,000 worse off due to university placement requirements