Organisers of the Paid Placements Aotearoa petition and speakers from the event with politicians. Photo: RNZ / Lillian Hanly
Teachers, healthcare workers, and social workers have marched to Parliament pleading for payment while they train for the job.
About 60 people delivered a petition - signed by more than 16,000 - to Labour MP Jan Tinetti on Tuesday.
The petition calls for students to receive a fortnightly stipend to help cover costs.
Paid Placements Aotearoa campaign lead Bex Howells dropped out of social work training because of unpaid placements.
"It just seemed crazy to me that we were bound by this code of ethics that talked about treating people with dignity and respect and advocating against inequities and yet here we were, expected to do thousands of hours of unpaid labour to qualify and it just made no sense to me."
Organiser Bex Howells hands Paid Placements Aotearoa's petition to Labour MP Jan Tinetti. Photo: RNZ / Lillian Hanly
NZ Medical Students' Association president Indira Fernando told the crowd about the costs of unpaid placement.
"We're expected to pay to get ourselves to placement, sometimes across the country from where we live. We pay for food while we are on placement. We pay for rent both at home and on out-of-town placements. And we cannot work.
"Everyday we seem to hear a new story of hardship from our peers. Students reach out to us because they are unable to feed their children. They cannot afford their groceries. They are sleeping in their cars."
Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers president Sharon Roberts spoke of "placement poverty", saying this was not a "right of passage".
"We see social work students drop out at the rate of 45 percent. That means that nearly half of those who want to become social workers are not achieving their dream, and that's a loss of half our workforce potential.
"One less social worker is one less professional supporting a child at risk of abuse. One less professional meeting the needs of someone struggling with mental health."
The crowd supporting the petition from Paid Placements Aotearoa. Photo: RNZ / Lillian Hanly
Representatives from the Labour Party, the Greens and NZ First also spoke at the event.
Labour does not currently have a policy on the issue, but spokesperson for social development Carmel Sepuloni said it had started the discussion while in government.
"Ministers with relevant portfolios were discussing highly feminised workforces where there are workforce shortages and how we could better support people to take up the training in these areas. We did a lot of work to support earn-and[learn opportunities for the trades, it is now time to look at how this might work in other fields. We haven't settled on our policy yet, but it will be something we discuss and are interested in hearing people's thoughts on."
This weekend the coalition government announced funding from this year's Budget that would go toward on-site training for some teachers.
Minister of Education Erica Stanford said while this did not extend to all teachers at this point, paid placements was a topic of interest.
"Having people train on the job is clearly, as per ERO's report, something that's going to improve the readiness of teachers in our classroom."
