this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
218 points (98.2% liked)

Australia

3584 readers
136 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @[email protected] who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @[email protected] and @[email protected]

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 13 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh, do the 3-7 year residency process next, where hourly wages are usually below minimum wage!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I'm not sure what job you're referring to, but resident doctors make very good money.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Like thousands of other nursing students, Victoria Robinson needs to complete more than 800 hours of unpaid work placements to graduate.

Current students like Victoria have shared their stories with the ABC, saying the status quo is exploitative, and inflicting significant mental and financial pain.

Kate's already dealing with the crippling cost of living, so dropping paid work for an unpaid placement requires financial help from three generations of her family.

"I'm taking a full year off, which means that I won't be finished until somewhere around 2027 — possibly even later, if I continue to study part-time, which is what I've been doing … so that I can pay rent," he said.

James is a founding member of advocacy group Students Against Placement Poverty, which he said had been inundated with stories from young people across the country in significant stress.

Some students were having to stay in abusive partnerships or go back to unhealthy family situations to save money to do their placements, he added.


The original article contains 944 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

Disgusting and exploitative is an understatement.

This is blatantly taking advantage of many kids who have no previous work experience and are told ‘this is how it is’.

What a joke. I hope it’s fixed with the review of universities and then international students get some relief next.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

As an American, what uni's is this common at?

Is this similar to a German work study?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Literally every uni in Australia requires it, but not for every degree. Teaching and medicine are the two that come immediately to mind for me. From the article, it seems like social work also requires a sort of prac.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Engineering has 12 weeks full time.

I don't know if it's addressed by the review but TAFE certs often have placement reqs.

Law has something, there was a scandal a few years ago v where students were paying huge sums for placements at some institutions.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Engineering, at least at UQ where I did my degree, requires you do 60 days of work, but there's generally an expectation that you will be paid during that work. You're doing that work for private companies finding places yourself, so they kind of have to treat you as a normal intern (which in Australia, means being paid). It's different from the placements that the uni themselves organise with government departments like happens in medicine and education.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

https://www.fairwork.gov.au/starting-employment/unpaid-work/student-placements

Being paid is, unfortunately, not a legal requirement if work experience is a mandatory part of your course.

In SA paid internships exist but are very competitive. Most of my graduating class was unpaid.

I'm very glad to hear that's an expectation in Qld, companies should be ashamed to offer unpaid positions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Interesting... I studied software development at Swinburne (2008-2011) and every student in the course did a one year work placement in year 3. It was paid about 3/4 the salary of a graduate job.

[–] prosthetiknow 6 points 8 months ago

Not only is it unpaid work, students are accruing debt for the ‘teaching component’ of the placement course/unit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] threelonmusketeers 2 points 8 months ago

Don't know why you're getting downvoted; that was great!