Australia¡¯s government has devised a mechanism to ensure that means testing for its new ¡°prac payment¡± does not inadvertently rule out the neediest recipients.

The A$331.65 (?158.05) weekly?, which kicks in on 1 July, will help students deal with the financial impacts of mandatory placements in midwifery, social work and teaching degrees and nursing degrees and diplomas.

The payment will be means tested, raising concerns that struggling students could miss out if they were nudged over the eligibility threshold by paid jobs they needed for survival.

Working students can be particularly disadvantaged by practicums that force them to cancel shifts, or even quit jobs they need to feed and house themselves.

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Newly published??allay such fears. Students on practicum attract prac payments if they typically work at least 15 hours a week, but attract less than A$1,500 in net weekly earnings. In other words, modest income confers eligibility rather than preventing it. Students on welfare payments are also eligible.

Monash University policy analyst Andrew Norton said the prac payment was a ¡°good idea¡± and the scheme¡¯s design had relieved some of his early concerns about eligibility criteria, but warned that many students would still miss out.

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¡°In the Australian way of public policy, the prac payment is an underwhelming half-measure¡­with overly complex implementation that also reduces its value to students,¡± Norton?.

He said the interplay of income tests and tax would prevent some needy students from receiving full payments, and others from receiving any help at all. Prac payments would in effect reduce the weekly value of other income support streams, which are also means tested, by about A$71 or more.

Prac payments would also push income support recipients over the taxable threshold, forcing them to hand back around A$682 a year in tax.

Norton said about 30 per cent of students on practicum would be ineligible for the payments because they worked too few hours, with another 30 per cent ruling themselves out by earning too much. ¡°Gaming¡± was inevitable among both groups.

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Meanwhile, students forced to give up paid work to do placements would be worse off overall by at least A$55 a week, despite attracting prac payments, he calculated.

¡°Some money is better than none at all, but these deficiencies raise questions about whether the prac payment will make a major difference to completion rates.¡±

Education minister Jason Clare has credited the imminent arrival of prac payments for revitalising enrolments in courses with placements. He said domestic commencements in teaching and nursing degrees had risen by 45,000 last year, and the growth had continued into 2025.

Clare said new??of up to A$40,000 were enticing students into teaching courses, but the prac payment scheme was also helping. ¡°A bit of financial support to help them while they¡¯re doing their practical training ¨C it¡¯s never happened before,¡± he told journalists.

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Universities support prac payments but resent being?required to administer them, saying civil servants in social services agencies are better suited to the task. Norton said a third option was to hand the job to the Education Department.

Prac payments for nursing diploma students are set to be administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), Norton pointed out. ¡°If DEWR can do it so can the Department of Education, or better still they could share it. It would be more efficient than every university setting up its own means-testing system.¡±

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com