Payments of up to $420 a day will be provided to student teachers in Victoria as part of a bid to relieve the “financial pressures” faced by those wanting a career in education and offer support to regional and remote schools.
Premier Jacinta Allan on Tuesday said the government will splash $32.2 million on a pre-service teacher placement grants program to benefit thousands of Victorians.
The cash is being made available to student teachers who opt to complete placements at metropolitan specialist schools and rural and remote schools.
The payments will help to “cover the costs student teachers often incur undertaking placements”, such as travel, accommodation and other loss of income.
Student teachers in outer regional and remote areas will receive a $420 daily payment, while those in regional urban centres and at metro special schools will get $140 a day.
The government said the program will fund 11,000 placements for those studying an accredited Victorian school teaching degree through to December 31, 2025.
Ms Allan told reporters it was “another practical that way we can provide support to help with some of the financial pressures and barriers to getting in to becoming a teacher”.
She also said the move will “provide assistance for more young Victorians to come in and see teaching as a fabulous career pathway for them into the future”.
“We know that particularly for regional and remote schools, special schools, that we can do more… to provide people who are undertaking their student training… with additional support,” Ms Allan added.
The grants program comes after the Victorian government recently allocated $93.2 million to make it free to study a secondary teaching degree.
A further $95.7 million has been put towards an expansion of the Career Start initiative to support graduate teachers in government schools, and $27 million has been allocated for the targeted financial incentives program to help teachers to relocate to hard-to-staff government school roles.
Ms Allan said the overall $229.8 million investment was “about supporting a pipeline of teachers now, and into the future”.
The Australian Education Union Victorian branch earlier this year called on then-premier Daniel Andrews to “pay a cost of living allowance to those undertaking teacher training and who commit to working in a public school”.
