Urgent calls to end compulsory unpaid internships as students forced to quit due to cost of living

Students ‘burnt out and disillusioned’ in vocational degrees, with hundreds of hours of unpaid work leading to high dropout rates

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Academics are calling for students to be compensated for compulsory internships to stem high dropout rates amid a cost-of-living crisis.

Ruby Partland, a masters student in social work at RMIT, is required to complete 1,000 hours of unpaid internships to complete her degree – equating to around six months of full-time work.

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