Why social work students are finding it harder to complete key placements

Ella* Chen requested a pseudonym as she is a current Fed Uni social work student from China.

"Everything is a little bit stretched, especially considering the ratio to students and their placement requirements," Ms Chen said.

"It is a sharp increase in recent years," she said. "A lot of students [are] from Mainland China and India."

Fed Uni graduate Yan Cao said she was the only Chinese person in class when she studied for the same degree three years ago.

The university previously told The Courier students enrolled in masters of social work this year increased by 51 per cent compared to last year. The university promotes the course with "5-star teaching quality and student satisfaction".

Social work students are required to undertake 1000 hours of placements for their degree.

"A lot of students are struggling to find placement opportunities," Ms Chen said.

Ballarat is a smaller city with fewer opportunities compared to major ones, so students who can't find a placement here will have to travel two to three hours to another place, she said.

"Most of my cohort are mature students That could be really inconvenient for people with kids," she added.

Ms Chen said the "placement requirement versus this huge increase in student headcount" is "beyond the university's capability".

A Federation University spokesperson said in a statement the university "sources placements for its social work students. These placements occur within commuting distance and are negotiated with each student, and placements are usually confirmed within their semester of enrolment".

Enrolled in 2021 and graduating last year, Ms Cao said the lack of placement opportunities concerned her while she was studying even though students had yet to flood back.

A large number of students allegedly didn't do the placements during the pandemic, which led to a strain on the university's resources, she said.

We got antsy and started looking for opportunities on our own, including myself," she said.

In addition to the few opportunities, language could also be a major difficulty for second-language speaker to find a placement by themselves, she added.

Current social work student Oluwatobi Akanbi said he didn't notice a problem with the university's capability, but instead "issues with commitment".

Mr Akanbi said the university provides different options for students, but some students prefer something else.

Life story work is one example - the main task of life story work is to record a life story of children and young people who have spent a lot of time living in care.

This was Ms Chen's last choice as she wanted to be more involved in the community, she said.

Being a proactive student, Ms Chen said she started to seek a placement at a very early stage.

Representatives from the Chinese Australian Cultural Society Ballarat previously told The Courier the university had been seeking placement opportunities for social work students.

More than 10 Chinese students from the university have volunteered at Ballarat's Xin Jin Shan Chinese Library, the largest Chinese library in Australia.

Ms Chen said if the higher student numbers is an issue, the community might be able to chip in with some opportunities like the library.

"I'd really hope Fed Uni or the wider community could do a little bit more, especially in advance," she said.

Fed Uni declined to share how many students are enrolled in the masters of social work course.