PLACEMENT POVERTY: HEALTH SCIENCE TERTIARY EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA

Right now, there are over 200,000 students across Australia studying health sciences, comprising of medicine, nursing and allied health professions, among others. They study a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, and invest anywhere from 2 to 7 years or more in their education. They play a critical role in our health system, caring for our sick and elderly, and entry into these fields of study are competitive. Upon entry into these programmes however, students are faced with a grim reality: the expectation to participate in a number of unpaid, full-time placements to further their training. Whilst typically presented as a learning experience, many of these placements involve significant work contributions by the people who participate in them, without any requisite remuneration and often resulting in high out of pocket costs for students. Students are implicitly expected to forgo other paid employment during this time, further increasing the relative cost of these programs. In many instances, only those economically privileged enough to forgo this income, live with their parents or who have sufficient savings can cope, and many are pushed into “placement poverty” because of this.