BASW General Election Blog: Reform bursary support for social work students
Overview
BASW and SWU have led on the campaign for fairer, more equitably available, and greater financial support for social work students across the UK.
Access to financial support through a bursary grant is essential for social work students. As part of their course, they must gain experience by completing frontline work on placement, which prevents them from doing paid part-time work elsewhere to help fund their studies.
It is therefore critical that bursaries can adequately fund students while they complete their qualification, gain essential experience and develop their skills and practice to best prepare them for becoming a social worker.
Since social work and higher education are devolved issues, responsibility for this matter rests with devolved nation administrations. A government at Westminster can only improve student bursaries for those studying social work in England. It’s for this reason that the ask in BASW’s General Election manifesto relates specifically to England.
There are similar ongoing campaigns to lobby the devolved governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland, both supported by SWU and their Campaign Fund. In Wales, action has already been taken by the Welsh Government to increase bursary funding by 50%, following campaigning by BASW Cymru and SWU.
The SWU Campaign Fund is available for SWU members to set campaign priorities and engage in activism. Find out more.
What is the problem?
The current social work student bursary system in England is desperately limited and outdated as a result of two overarching problems – availability and value.
Firstly, the distribution of bursaries is unequal, with only around 1 in 6 students benefiting from receiving one. This is because the number being made available (1500 for postgraduate students and 2500 for undergraduate students) has been capped since 2013.
Secondly, for those who do get a bursary, the amount of funding they receive has been frozen for almost a decade, resulting in a real-terms cut in support. This has undoubtedly been even more sharply felt since the pandemic as cost-of-living pressures tighten, and on the back of years of austerity.
What is the impact?
The result of inadequate funding is far reaching and extensive. For starters, many potential students might not even consider a career in social work if they feel it will be too costly for them to study for it. At a time when social work faces serious recruitment challenges and a nationwide staffing crisis, we are doing ourselves no favours by making it more challenging for people to qualify. We should be attracting more people into the profession, not pricing them out of it.
For those who do still choose to study social work, lack of financial support can put them under significant pressure and risks taking a serious toll on their mental health, wellbeing and welfare. Many might be forced to find paid work to make ends meet in addition to their studies and work placements, which is not a sustainable nor fair situation to put students in. Social work, and training to become a social worker, is demanding enough without putting additional stress and strain on students who are worried about whether they can afford to complete the course. We risk students entering the profession burned out, rather than ready to make a positive difference.
It goes without saying that, for those who are struggling to afford the costs associated with studying, they risk experiencing financial hardship and falling into poverty. It’s completely unacceptable that students are being pushed to the brink in this way, and also entirely avoidable if the right support is in place to help fund them.
BASW Chief Executive, Dr Ruth Allen and SWU General Secretary, John McGowan spoke to The Social Worker & The Mentor podcast about why we need change.
What is the solution?
Students are the future of social work and, without investing in them, we put the whole social work profession at risk.
The next UK Government can begin showing it values our profession by committing to properly supporting the next generation of social workers. This means levelling up the existing bursary system so everyone has equitable access and uprating the amount of support being made available to a fairer value.
BASW and SWU’s campaign has already seen multiple letters written to both the Conservative and Labour parties outlining the severity of the problem and urging them to commit to reviewing and reforming the current system along these lines. Questions were also laid by backbench MPs to Ministers in the last parliament.
The case has been firmly made to political parties, but we still haven’t had a commitment from them to take concrete action. It’s why the matter will be one of BASW and SWU’s priority asks of the incoming UK Government and has featured so prominently in BASW’s manifesto. We must continue to make our voice heard to achieve much needed change.
It’s not sustainable to stick with the current, outdated system. Doing so ignores the pressure being put on students and unnecessary barriers it creates. Our profession, our workforce, and the people we serve, cannot afford it.
Get Involved!
If you would like to add your support to the campaign, please contact Josh Dixon - joshua.dixon@basw.co.uk - and Shawn Major - shawn.major@swu-union.org.uk - to get involved.
