Food for thought:
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Childcare
The Postgraduate Board is a primary sponsor of the two student based childcare centres on campus – House at Pooh Corner and The Honeypot. PGB representatives sit on, and are active within, the Boards of Management of each centre.
Waiting lists at UNSW childcare centres hover around 700 children. Many parents don’t even bother to put their children in the waiting lists. These excessive waiting lists pose a serious barrier to students wishing to take up postgraduate positions at UNSW. The waiting list is so extensive at the Honeypot that the Board of Management recently decided to close the list rather than falsely raise parents’ hopes by listing them.
If a student is lucky enough to get a place for their child they must face the burden of high fees. Only the student organisations such as the Postgraduate Board subsidise campus childcare centres, and student money built the centres. The University owns the land on which the centres exist, but does not contribute to operational costs.
Implications of Proposed Legislation for this Service
The proposed introduction of VSU will only place a greater financial burden on postgraduate students with children. Currently the UNSW Postgraduate Board makes donations of around $25,000 (or 9% of the Board’s budget) to the student childcare centres on campus. With the proposed legislation this donation will be eliminated and the cost of childcare will rise accordingly for students.
I am a Postgrad student and I have three children, two of whom are under school age. I am writing to express my horror on being told that there is no on-campus child care available. On application to Pooh Corner and Honeypot I was told that there is a three year wait for a place for a two year old. This not only means that I am unable to access childcare for my existing children on campus until 2009 (when they will have started school), but also that I will need to book a place 'just in case' I fall pregnant anytime in the next two years.
This is an equity issue. Women are still primarily responsible for childcare. Higher education is not an available option for women with children unless adequate quality childcare places are available. It is imperative that a significant proportion of these be on-campus infant places (for under two year olds) to enable breastfeeding mothers to drop in and feed their little ones when required.
Financial modelling carried out for the Honeypot Childcare Centre indicates that if keeping the current organisational structure, sessional care costs to students will rise by $20 per day (55% rise) and long day care places will rise by $23 per day (also 55% increase). The increase could be reduced if the number of sessional and casual places were reduced and replaced with long day care places, however, this negates the flexible philosophy under which the centre was established and discriminates against international students (approximately 20% of the centre’s users) who cannot access the Federal childcare benefit for long day care.
International postgraduate students are a key component to UNSW developing a respected reputation abroad as a leading tertiary institution. The proposed legislation will particularly affect International students as they are not eligible for Federal government childcare subsidies (unless AUSAID sponsored). That means that they end up paying anything up to three times more for the same childcare place as local students.
Under the proposed legislation there will be no independent student voice lobbying for changes to the legislation, or to fight to keep the costs manageable.
This lack of available and affordable childcare means a lack of access to education.
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Joint Postgraduate Board/ Student Guild Activities
Through PGB contributions to the Student Guild, postgraduates are also able to access:
- Free legal advice provided by a qualified solicitor
- Advice and advocacy on income support and other welfare issues
- Funding of clubs and societies and provision of a resource centre
- International students department
- Indigenous students department
- Lesbian students’ and gay students’ departments
- Environment department
Implications of Proposed Legislation for this Service
It is expected that the Guild will be unable to maintain these services under the proposed legislation. The value of the independence of these services, particularly the Solicitor (the availability of whom 80% of postgraduates rated as important to extremely important), is unquantifiable.
http://oldwww.pgb.unsw.edu.au/conte...on to Senate Inquiry into VSU Legislation.pdf
