The Commonwealth Prac Payment (CPP) will help ease financial pressures for eligible students during practicums, ensure you can persist with your studies, graduate, and enter the workforce.

The CPP comes into effect from 1 July 2025 and is not retrospective.

Eligible students must be in receipt of a primary Centrelink benefit or meet the ‘need to work’ test determined by the Government.

Eligibility criteria

The CPP is funded by the Australian Government to help eligible students cover the costs of their mandatory placements. In 2025, if you’re eligible and studying nursing, midwifery, social work, or teaching, you’ll receive $331.65 for each week of your placement.

To be eligible, you must:

• be a domestic student enrolled in a Commonwealth supported place
• be enrolled a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in an eligible course of study that leads to entry-to-practice in teaching, social work, or nursing and midwifery
• be completing a mandatory placement commencing on or after 1 July 2025
• be completing the placement full-time (more than 30 hours per week)
• not exceeded the CPP maximum limit on the number of weeks of support available for your course
• meet one of the following income tests and provide relevant supporting documentation:
  • be the recipient of an approved Centrelink or Department of Veterans Affairs payment OR
  • be employed and working on average more than 15 hours a week and earning less than $1500 per week (inclusive of other income sources) in the four weeks prior to applying for CPP or the four weeks prior to commencing your placement, whichever is earlier (these consecutive weeks must be during a study period and can't be during an inter-trimester break).

The maximum number of CPP funded weeks of placement for each eligible discipline are:

Nursing (Bachelor) – 20 weeks
Midwifery (Bachelor) – 20 weeks + 6 continuity of care
Teacher Education (Bachelor) – 16 weeks
Teacher Education (Masters) – 12 weeks
Social Work (Bachelor) – 26 weeks
Social Work (Masters) – 26 weeks

Once you receive the maximum number of CPP funded placement weeks for your discipline (as listed above), you are not eligible for additional CPP funding, even if your course requires you to complete more placement weeks than the standard requirement.

Supporting documentation

Based on the eligibility criteria you meet, you may be required to provide the relevant documents listed below:

• If you receive a Centrelink benefit or Department of Veterans Affairs payment, please upload either your Centrelink Payment Details or Centrelink Income Statement.
• If you indicated that you worked an average of 15 hours per week and earned less than $1,500 per week over a continuous four-week period before your placement or before submitting your application for CPP (whichever comes first), please upload one of the following:p payslips, payroll summaries or printouts, or time and wage sheets.

Please note, the above documents must be dated during a study period and can't be during an inter-trimester break.

How to apply

Applications will open in late June with payments commencing from 1 July 2025. We will provide further information on the application process closer to the opening date.

More information

For further information about the payment, please email commpracpayment@deakin.edu.au.

You can also read more about the Commonwealth Prac Payment on the Australian Government website.

Please note: Deakin is in ongoing consultation with the Australian Government and the eligibility criteria are subject to change.