Hot
Topic Archive
February
/ March 09
In
debt to volunteering?
By
OzVPM Director Andy
Fryar
The
latest ‘Hot Topic’ to face volunteering in Australia
is the rumour that the Prime Minister is soon to announce
the formation of a ‘Youth Corp’ program, which aims
to encourage a much higher participation rate by students
by allowing them to ‘work off’ their HECS* debt through
a yet to be determined amount of volunteer work. See
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ozvpm/message/3265
It
is believed that this was one of the key recommendations
to come out of the Prime Minister’s 20/20 Summit**
last year.
When
the newspaper article broke last week, it was interesting
to read the vast range of responses that the idea
elicited, and it was pleasing to see a significant
number of volunteer management professionals also
throwing their hats into the ring in debating the
issues that were arising.
So
let’s take a look at some of the issues which the
proposed project raises.
1.
Is it volunteering?
The
first issue which people quickly seize upon is the
question of whether or not an activity which allows
you to ‘pay off’ a debt is indeed volunteering? The
debate about volunteering definitions is one I have
written about many times in the past, and while I
don’t want to discourage readers in respond to the
matter of definitions, I’d rather refer you back to
some of those previous topics (see links below) than
re-ignite that debate again in this column.
http://www.ozvpm.com/pasthottopics/february08.php
http://www.ozvpm.com/pasthottopics/october06.php
http://www.ozvpm.com/pasthottopics/april06.php
http://www.ozvpm.com/pasthottopics/july05.php
Definitions
aside, what I do want to say is that there are two
certainties which will eventuate from this initiative
should it go ahead.
• Regardless
of how we define these students, this group WILL become
the responsibility of volunteer managers once they
roll out into the community
• The
success or failure of this initiative won’t lie with
the placement of students to organisations. It won’t
lie with student motivation. It won’t lie with a University’s
ability to mobilise students and it won’t lie with
the time / dollar ratio the government decide upon.
Make
NO mistake that the ultimate success or failure of
this initiative will lie with ALL OF US in the profession
of volunteer management. The way we support, lead,
include and find meaningful volunteer work for this
group will be paramount in the new program succeeding,
flourishing and becoming a gateway to other volunteer
opportunities for this group as they progress through
life.
2.
The question of resources
The
second issue worth debating is the one related to
the need for this anticipated boost in volunteer numbers.
It is worth noting that there was little representation
at the 20/20 summit by the established voluntary sector
in this country. AAVA were not invited nor were Volunteering
Australia.
Largely
the voluntary sector was represented by some of our
largest and most traditional charities. With all due
respect to those groups, it is not difficult to observe
that these are the groups who are most in need of
volunteers, not because volunteers are not available,
but because they have refused to change with the times
and make their volunteer opportunities more attractive
to new generations of volunteers. If the thinking
is that we can ‘prop up’ these institutions with younger
(more episodic) volunteers without fundamental cultural
changes in those agencies, we are sadly kidding ourselves.
The
other point on resources is that the new initiative
in some ways assumes that younger people (students
in this case) don’t already volunteer. This is not
true. Statistics clearly tell us that around one in
three young people under 25 volunteer (through organisations)
on a regular basis, and if we look at comparative
data over the past decade, we find that this age group
is the one which recorded the largest growth rate
in volunteering activity over that period. So a key
question we need to ask is just how many extra people
this initiative will bring to volunteering, or will
those already volunteering now simply add a HECS debt
reduction to the benefits they gain from the activity?
3.
The question of resourcing
The
third, and perhaps most important question relates
to how the government plan to support the organisations
that are going to need to support the student volunteers.
There is no secret that governments just don’t get
the volunteer management piece in the puzzle. I can
see now that funding will again be released for volunteering
agencies to purchase additional equipment to support
the extra volunteers – but how do we get them to understand
that the investment needs to be in people resources
and volunteer management training rather than new
equipment?
Consider
the following questions:
• All
of these new volunteers will need to be administered
/ managed, often in programs where the VPM is already
run off of his/her feet. Additional resources?
• Many
will require police record and other screening checks.
How will these be paid for and what additional resources
will be available to process them at an organisational
level?
• What
happens when a student’s time is up and they have
paid off their debt? Will there be additional paperwork
required to register (and de-register) applicants
under this scheme?
• Whose
responsibility will it be to report students who do
not show up?
4.
A Positive Experience?
The
final point I’d like to raise is the one about how
we might best integrate this new group of volunteers
into our program. Let’s face it, if the experience
of volunteering for these students turns out not to
be a positive one, then the overall participation
rate by this age group may actually decline as they
grow into young adulthood (the age group which has
traditionally made up the majority of Australia’s
volunteers)
Over
to you…
So
there are some of the key issues which I see we need
to be discussing in relation to this newly proposed
program, now it is over to you.
Let’s
get some solid debate going about this and I look
forward to hearing of your concerns, thoughts and
ideas about how we move forward
Let’s
hear your thoughts!
*HECS
= Higher Education Contribution Scheme. As a general
rule, all students who attend Australian tertiary
education institutions are charged higher education
fees . However, several measures are in place to relieve
the costs of tertiary
education in Australia
.
Most
students are Commonwealth supported. This means that
they are only required to pay a part of the cost of
tuition, called the "student contribution", while
the Commonwealth pays the balance; and students are
able to defer payment of their contribution as a HELP
loan. Other domestic students are full fee-paying
(non-Commonwealth supported) and receive no other
direct government contribution to the cost of their
education. They can also obtain subsidised HELP loans
from the Government up to a lifetime limit of $100,000
for medicine, dentistry and veterinary science programs
and $80,000 for all other programs. Australian
citizens and (with some limitations) permanent
residents [1]
are able to obtain interest free loans from the
government under the Higher Education Loan Programme
( HELP ) which replaced the Higher Education Contribution
Scheme ( HECS ). (Source Wikipedia)
**
The Australia 2020 Summit was a convention
, referred to in Australian media as a summit
, which was held on 19
- 20
April 2008
in Canberra
, Australia
, aiming to "help shape a long term strategy for
the nation's future". [1]
Announced by the new Prime
Minister Kevin
Rudd , the summit drew limited bipartisan support
from Brendan
Nelson and the opposition Coalition
parties, and ran as 10 working groups of 100
participants. [2]
1002
delegates [3]
attended the summit to discuss ten "critical
areas". Ideas and proposals were invited from all
members of the community, and an official web site
was set up to accept submissions.
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