Scheme aims to overcome the cycle of placement poverty

Romy Stein had trouble finding a suitable placement to complete her Master of Counselling course at Edith Cowan University in Perth. “I originally intended to work with adults, but there is a shortage of placements and sometimes you have to go with what’s available,” she says of her extensive hunt for suitable on-the-job work experience. She was offered a counselling placement to work with adults in Mandurah, south of Perth, but it would have entailed a lengthy commute each way, two days a week for four months.

Eventually, she was offered a placement in a Perth primary school, working with children – not what she had hoped for, although she came to enjoy it. “It turned out to be an amazing experience for me,” she says. “I discovered I really love working with children. It worked out for me, but I know it’s difficult for a lot of people.”

Placements – practicums or pracs – are an unpaid and mandatory part of many Australian university degrees, including teaching, nursing, social work and counselling, and various applied health sciences courses, among others. Most placements require some upheaval – part-time jobs shelved, finances rearranged, travel arrangements organised. Some placements are geographically distant from the student’s home, adding substantial costs.In July 2025, the federal government will introduce a means-tested Commonwealth Prac Payment scheme to financially assist students undertaking placements in nursing, midwifery, social work and teaching. Eligible students will receive $319.50 a week while they’re on placements. Announced in the 2024 budget, it was widely considered welcome assistance to address long-neglected financial difficulties for students in crucial fields.

Shortly after the scheme was announced, federal Education Minister Jason Clare  told students at the University of Technology, Sydney, that he was aware of the difficulties inherent in placements. “Many people have told me in the last 12 months that it’s the poverty they experience when they do their prac that can often mean that it’s hard to finish their degree,” he said.

Modest state grants

“It’s the first time the commonwealth government has ever done this, a bit of practical support to help people with their practical training and help people who’ve signed up to do some of the most important jobs in our country to do that; encourage people to become nurses and midwives and help more people to complete that degree.”

The scheme will alleviate some of the financial burden of placements for some students, although detractors say the plan should be extended to all required placements across all fields of study.

At the same time, some state governments, including NSW and Victoria, offer modest placement grants or subsidies to students studying certain degrees – usually nursing or teaching.

Stein, now 38, had a full-time job while she was studying for her master’s degree, and she used her annual leave for the placement. “I knew for a long time it was coming, so I didn’t have a holiday for a long time,” she says, adding that it was a sacrifice, but she doesn’t regret it.

Regardless of the cost and logistical difficulties, placements remain an extremely important part of higher education, she says.

“There’s no substitute for learning on the job,” Stein adds. “You can study as much as you want from a textbook, but the actual experience of being presented with someone, learning what it’s like to be a counsellor and genuinely listening to someone who is going through something really difficult in their life: there’s just no substitute for that kind of learning.”

In the end, she says, there are challenges to work through with placements, and students need to maintain a flexible mindset in terms of accepting placements they might not think are exactly right for them.

She has witnessed the financial stress placements can create. “I know it’s not easy for a lot of people,” she says. “If you don’t have a partner’s support, it can be very, very challenging. There were a number of young people in my course; people working part-time jobs. I don’t know how they were making ends meet.”

Laura Luca, field education and placements manager at Keypath Education Australia, says there is a chronic shortage of placements across Australia, particularly for certain types of placements. “Metro placements are really tricky,” she says. “Lots of universities are competing for the same allied health placements.”

Luca helps place social work and counselling students in placements in appropriate organisations. Keypath works with universities to find and vet potential prac organisations, she says, to ensure the placements will work for students.

The students are then matched with the most appropriate organisations or businesses. A commute of 1½ hours one way is considered the maximum suitable for placements, and students who live in remote locations may have to move temporarily. In rare instances, student accommodation is available.

“We work collaboratively with the students,” Luca says. “Some unis get the students to find their own placements. We don’t do that. Students can suggest placements, but we build partnerships independently.”

If an organisation or business doesn’t meet the requirements, Keypath does not try to make it work, she adds, but rather moves on to find a more suitable fit.

Sometimes described as the “great disrupter”, the placement or prac is an essential part of many degrees, she says. But it does mean an abrupt gear change for students, who have to align their family commitments, finances and personal lives to accommodate a shift to real-world work experience.

“The real learning takes place on placement. They get to put everything they have learned online into practice,” Luca says, adding that she and her colleagues check in regularly with students on placements. They also check in with the organisations or businesses to make sure the placement is running smoothly.

As much as 60 hours of the placement has to comprise the student’s independent work with clients, which can be difficult for smaller practices, Luca says.

Accelerated course

Georgina Akers, course coordinator for the Master of Counselling course at Edith Cowan University, says placement requirements “create significant challenges” for students and the profession.

More than 1500 students have taken ECU’s accelerated online postgraduate counselling course since 2020; 30 per cent from regional and remote areas.

“While we’ve established partnerships with over 125 organisations nationally, we still need to place approximately 30 students every eight weeks,” Akers says. “The significant challenge is that unlike nursing, teaching and social work, there are currently no government subsidies for counselling placements.”

Counselling students must complete a minimum of 200 hours of unpaid work, which can lead to financial difficulties, Akers adds. It can render counselling qualifications unattainable for those from less advantaged backgrounds.

The university is working to build partnerships with a spread of organisations to support those students who live in rural and remote locations, Akers says, as well as developing new placement options, especially in schools, where student counsellors can provide mental health support to children and adolescents.

Yet counselling students are still forced to use annual leave, or take unpaid leave, or rely on their families or work on weekends to complete their placements. “This isn’t sustainable and risks excluding talented individuals from the profession at a time when mental health needs are increasing,” Akers says.

Counselling students who complete placements do well, with strong employment results, she says. “If we had government support to pay students for placement, we could make an even greater impact on individuals, families and communities.”

Australian Financial Review