Changes to HECS/HELP

[Chchgirl]

I take the paid placements with a grain of salt.

It's means tested and I'm sure they said it can be applied for and added to your current payment.

Which rules so many people out.

I have 800 hours to do for nursing, im thankful it's split up, I have plenty of leave with my job which will continue building up ( because I do mostly night shift I get extra shift worker leave) , I cam take leave and work are happy for me to do it. So I'll at least get paid while on placement.

I get over aged care but then think just hang in there, where I work is good and these benefits are worth it.

By the way, I was awarded a NSW health subsidy (found out two weeks ago) to be paid $12,000 over 2 years. Bloody awesome 

[nom_de_plume]

14 hours ago, onetrick said:

I get it, but I think there has to be a line drawn somewhere. And this something is better than nothing. I do also think that universities (and governing bodies, like VIT) need to be more flexible with how placements are structured. In teaching, for example, one university had one day per week for the year, with a bigger block near the end as well, and another will have 2x big blocks. One is definitely easier to work around life for a mature age student (it has other issues).

I've also had part time students as my student teachers. Instead of doing a 6 week block, they were to do 3 weeks. I offered to have them 3 days(2.5 technically) per week for 6 weeks as that way they could teach a VCE class in a block and they were so grateful. As a qualified teacher the following year, that is a better representation of their teaching load.

So yeah, not great but better than nothing which is what it is currently.

Yes, I completely understand the line has to be drawn somewhere. I just think about the type of people who study these degrees and it's often mature aged students, mostly women/mothers. 

I agree more needs to be done to accommodate part time placement. It took me two years longer than it should to complete mine as although I was enrolled part time the uni insisted my placement be undertaken full time. As a single parent I just couldn't make it work. In my particular case I could only log hours where I had client contact and then claim a percentage of admin time (I think 10%). So whether I saw 10 X 1hr clients over a Mon-Fri full time week or over two days, I could still only log 11hrs (10hrs client facing and 1hr admin). There was literally no reason we needed to undertake placement full time.

[STBG 2]

23 hours ago, Prancer said:

.  I had a look at 2 different Unis and there was $2000 a year difference between fees!  What on earth is this about?  I assume subjects will be slightly different?  So confusing and looks like my kid will have $40000 debt by the end of it!

Same degree 2 kids, 2 different universities and 2 completely different fee structures in our family. The social status of the university was definitely a factor.