OTA Statement to Members – Government’s announcement on paid clinical placements for some professions

Today, the Federal Ministers for Education, and Skills and Training, released a joint media release announcing 2025/26 budget funding for paid student placements for eligible teachers, nurses and social workers.

OTA is disappointed that at this stage, the announced funding has not included occupational therapy, nor any other registered allied health profession.

The introduction of the payment acts on the advice of the Universities Accord and the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce. 

The Australian Universities Accord Final Report (released on 25 February 2024) called for government financial supports for placements for the nursing, care and teaching professions. The Women’s Equality Taskforce report called for paid placement for teaching and nursing students.

OTA has advocated at both a state and federal level for paid clinical placements for occupational therapy students and the challenges for the sector in supporting quality clinical placements at both a state and federal level. We have also raised in a number of communications to government the increasing shortages of occupational therapists and the need for revised policies to address this.

We have written to and met with the office of Independent Senator David Pocock about paid student placements. We provided detailed information to the Government’s 2023 independent review of regulatory settings for overseas health practitioners about OT skills shortages and difficulties in filling clinical placements, and we have successfully advocated for OTs to be included in the national skills priority list.

We recently wrote to the Tasmanian political parties in the lead up to the state election to advocate for the government to fund occupational therapy clinical placements, and we have provided submissions to the Victorian and NSW governments about the challenges with clinical placements.

OTA will continue to advocate on this issue. Government has said that today’s announcement will not be the only one in response to the Accord recommendations, and that there will be more funding in the future. This announcement provides a clear basis for occupational therapy and allied health and to advocate strongly for paid placements in the upcoming election and future federal budgets.