What if I told you people are paying to work? Yes, you read that right, and we need to talk about it.
The most recent school term has been educational for me and exhausting for my flatmate – and not because we have kids. Some days, she would be fast asleep by the time I got home.
Five days a week, for roughly eight hours a day, she’s been working: planning and delivering lessons for dozens of five-year-olds, marking schoolwork and filling in for teachers when they fall sick. The catch? She hasn’t been paid a single cent.
Education student Talica Gummery, Millie Muroi and medical student Amulya Nallanchakravartula.
That’s because she’s one of hundreds of thousands of Australians enrolled in a university course which requires students to complete unpaid placements. These placements – in education, nursing, medicine, social work, psychology and more – are not just CV stackers. For these students, they are compulsory.
My flatmate has racked up roughly 400 hours for her primary school teaching degree, most of it over the past nine weeks. It left me with little doubt that placements are tough, especially for university students who don’t have substantial savings or family support.
The financial stress on these students has a name: placement poverty.
Unpaid placements have been around for decades. But recent cost-of-living pressures have put a huge burden on one of our most vulnerable demographics.
When our rent increased by more than 30 per cent earlier this year, my flatmate and I agreed I would cover a majority of the increase until she finished her placement. Not everyone has that flexibility.
Compulsory placements are part of teacher training but they often involve real work for no pay.Credit: Cathryn Tremain
Unpaid internships are one thing, but paying to work? That’s absurd
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15.04.2024
What if I told you people are paying to work? Yes, you read that right, and we need to talk about it.
The most recent school term has been educational for me and exhausting for my flatmate – and not because we have kids. Some days, she would be fast asleep by the time I got home.
Five days a week, for roughly eight hours a day, she’s been working: planning and delivering lessons for dozens of five-year-olds, marking schoolwork and........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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