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It is widely recognised that a lack of work experience can impede university students seeking graduate employment and that many tertiary students face significant barriers in securing work experience. Drawing on existing research, this article analyses these barriers, and considers the consequences of this inequity for affected individuals as well as for broader Australian society and the economy. The article proposes various ‘do-able’ reforms to the regulation of work integrated learning in tertiary education and student-finance schemes which would go some way to reducing these barriers.

This article extends current understandings of regulation of tertiary education, in particular, work experience undertaken by tertiary students, by contributing a ‘law in practice’ analysis of the effect of the existing regulatory regime on work integrated learning practice within Australian universities. It considers how Australian universities are responding to, implementing, or overlooking the formal regulatory framework regarding work experience placements. The analysis is informed by data gathered in a series of 68 semi-structured interviews conducted with individuals from 15 universities around Australia and provides unique insights into how Universities are acting as regulators in the broad sense of the word. Understanding the enforcement of educational regulation is important, because it is the only national tool directed to ensuring work experience opportunities afford real learning which will facilitate skills development and increase future employment opportunities and are equitable and safe for student participants.

More and more young Australians are undertaking periods of work experience as a part of their study or independently to facilitate their transition into employment. They are often subject to a significant power disparity compared to others in the workplace, and need the placement to finish a course, and/or to get practical experience, connections and industry references. This makes them vulnerable, including to sexual harassment and sex discrimination. However, whether prohibitions of such conduct apply to them is a complex question, which this article explores.

This chapter explores the common assumption that work experience undertaken by students as a part of their tertiary education is better regulated and of higher quality than ‘open market’ opportunities. It considers the educationally focused regulation of internships in Australia, England and France and contributes a ‘law in practice’ analysis of the effect of the existing regulatory regime on work integrated learning practice within Australian universities. Informed by data gathered in a series of 68 interviews conducted with individuals from 15 universities, the chapter considers how Australian universities are responding to, implementing, or overlooking the formal regulatory framework regarding work experience placements. This analysis contributes unique insights into how Universities are acting as regulators in the broad sense of the word and allows preliminary conclusions about the efficacy of educationally focussed regulation to be drawn.

This concluding chapter assesses the extent to which international and regional labour standards currently apply to internships (or traineeships), as well as the potential for the creation of new standards that might regulate the quality of these arrangements and extend appropriate labour and social rights to interns or trainees. We briefly review the different types of state regulation that have been developed or applied around the world, and examine the role that non-state regulators (such as employers, trade unions, educational institutions and professional associations) can and do play. We conclude by outlining some principles that can usefully guide the regulation of internships and help respond to the policy challenges explored throughout this book.

The purpose of this book is to bring together experts from around the world in labour law, employment relations and labour economics to explain what we know about the use and value of internships (or traineeships as they are sometimes called), and to discuss how they are or should be regulated. This introduction offers some preliminary explanations for the growth of internships, and highlights some of the ways in which both scholars and policy makers have sought to analyse and respond to that development. It explains how the rest of the book is structured and briefly summarises the contributions in it. The introduction concludes by saying something about the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had so far on internships and what it might mean for their use in the future.

Background: COVID-19 can result in a severe viral pneumonia, with high reported mortality rates in patients requiring mechanical ventilation. There is controversy as to whether established therapeutic approaches to acute respiratory distress syndrome are optimal in this condition, and numerous novel therapies have been used, often outside the context of randomised trials. In addition, longer term quality of life outcomes associated with COVID-19 are as yet unknown. The aim of this case series is to describe demographic, physiological and outcome data of patients with COVID-19 admitted to our intensive care units who were treated according to evidence-based guidelines for acute respiratory distress syndrome.Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of all patients admitted to intensive care units in our institution with COVID-19 between March and June, 2020. Physiological and laboratory data were recorded at baseline and daily until intensive care discharge or death. Quality of life was assessed at a virtual post-intensive care follow-up clinic around 10 weeks after ICU discharge.Results: 45 patients with COVID-19 were included, 37 (82.2%) of whom were male, with a mean age of 55 years. 42 (93.3%) of this cohort met criteria for acute respiratory distress syndrome at time of admission. Clinical management was consistent with evidence based institutional guidelines introduced for acute respiratory distress syndrome. Median length of intensive care stay was 14 days. The intensive care mortality rate was 8.9%. Functional and psychological morbidity post intensive care was significant: 45.2% of respondents had at least moderate impairment of mobility and 35.5% described at least moderate symptoms of anxiety or depression at the time of follow up.Conclusions : This case series demonstrates low mortality in a cohort of patients treated according to an established evidence-based approach for acute respiratory distress syndrome. However, COVID-19 survivors have a marked functional and psychological morbidity impacting quality of life following ICU admission. The therapeutic goal in the future will be to achieve similar survival outcomes while minimizing the significant morbidity associated with COVID-19 related critical care admission.

At the heart of modern labour law are two related questions: 'What is the purpose of regulating work relationships?' and 'who is the subject of that regulation?'. In recent years, scholarly debates about these issues have interrogated the adequacy of traditional concepts for the global era.

Anti-discrimination law in Australia is at a crossroads. After four decades of proliferation of legislation to regulate discrimination, national attention has turned from increasing regulation to legislative consolidation and reform. This article contributes a theoretical analysis to the reform debate. Two liberal theoretical justifications for prohibiting discrimination, harm and redistributive justice, are considered. This investigation assists to determine when the state should intervene in order to restrict discrimination, and whether state and territory anti-discrimination regimes have a legitimate continuing role in Australia's legislative landscape.

We live in an age of uncertainty in which the two seeming constants are continuing change and growth in bodies of knowledge. These factors affect all fields of life, including the study and practice of the law. In 1998 Sumitra Vignaendra determined that the vast majority of law students went on to work in a legal capacity of some kind. While there is no more recent data available regarding the number of law graduates who go on to practise in law, anecdotal evidence suggests that many law students do intend to engage in practice as a lawyer, and graduate destination surveys imply that this ambition is realised for many. But the ever-changing nature of law means legal learning for those entering the profession cannot stop at graduation; practising lawyers must constantly update and expand their knowledge. Law graduates must, therefore, be properly equipped for a lifelong process of learning.

While the importance of equipping graduates with professional skills is often recognised, both academics and students acknowledge that the process of teaching and learning skills at law school can be difficult. In this article the authors will reaffirm the continuing importance of skills teaching in Australian law schools and argue these difficulties are not insurmountable. We briefly explore our own experiences in teaching professional skills in a tertiary context, using a situational learning methodology (where students put themselves in the position of practising lawyers), and discuss some of the lessons we have learned in the process of adapting and refining our approach to this perennially challenging issue.

The last two decades have seen growing debate in many countries about the appropriateness of displaying religious symbols in the public sphere. Much discussion has focussed on the wearing of religiously inspired dress and in particular Islamic dress. The latest chapter in this saga are attempts to ban in public the burqa and niqab, clothing worn by some Muslim women which covers the face.

Many pedagogical and practical advantages of engaging students in experiential situational learning such as simulated practice involving teamwork are discussed in educational literature and are confirmed anecdotally by educators. However, many academics who implement situational learning methodologies encounter difficulties, particularly in relation to managing students who are working together, group assessment, and the assessment of skills rather than substantive knowledge acquisition. This article considers some of the common problems encountered with situational learning as discussed in the literature and as identified through research conducted in courses using this methodology. This discussion is then used to suggest tools and concepts in preparation which can be used to avoid or manage some of the common problems with situational learning, and ensure that legal simulations operate as successfully as possible from both student and teacher perspectives.

[Extract} The hypothesis that the university academic must have both a research and a teaching component to their work is under attack. At one stage it would have been said that every academic is by definition a researcher – that a research component is fundamental to the ethos of a tertiary institution and, specifically, the development of the teaching criteria for assessment and the setting of levels within that assessment. After all, how could one be comfortable that the grade for a particular piece of work was set at the appropriate level unless the assessor was knowledgeable in the research area? How could a marker confidently conclude that a student has applied the law correctly to a problem based scenario if they were not an active researcher in the relevant area of law? Universities were not to be seen as a college of teaching experts, but as experts teaching and disseminating the fruits of their research labour. It was the research component that allowed an institution to be its own benchmark and standard setter.

Introduction Practitioners frequently encounter safety problems that they themselves can resolve on the spot. We ask: when faced with such a problem, do practitioners fix it in the moment and forget about it, or do they fix it in the moment and report it? We consider factors underlying these two approaches. Methods We used a qualitative case study design employing in-depth interviews with 40 healthcare practitioners in a tertiary care hospital in Ontario, Canada. We conducted a thematic analysis, and compared the findings with the literature. Results ‘Fixing and forgetting’ was the main choice that most practitioners made in situations where they faced problems that they themselves could resolve. These situations included (A) handling near misses, which were seen as unworthy of reporting since they did not result in actual harm to the patient, (B) prioritising solving individual patients’ safety problems, which were viewed as unique or one-time events and (C) encountering re-occurring safety problems, which were framed as inevitable, routine events. In only a few instances was ‘fixing and reporting’ mentioned as a way that the providers dealt with problems that they could resolve. Conclusions We found that generally healthcare providers do not prioritise reporting if a safety problem is fixed. We argue that fixing and forgetting patient safety problems encountered may not serve patient safety as well as fixing and reporting. The latter approach aligns with recent calls for patient safety to be more preventive. We consider implications for practice.

Amendments to the Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (SA) have been proposed which would introduce a new prohibition on discrimination on the ground of religious appearance and dress in the state. However, there remains no prohibition on discrimination based on religious belief or practice. This paper examines the reasons for this curious state of affairs, and considers its consequences for religious groups in South Australia. The legislation regarding religious discrimination in other jurisdictions is considered, as are alternative means that members of religious groups in South Australia may seek protection from discrimination against them. In particular, the link between the characteristics of religion and race are considered, and the different protections offered to religious and racial groups under anti-discrimination legislation is analysed.

Employment trends for women in British Columbia were examined for the 1953 to 1965 period. A time series study showing the effects of secular, seasonal, cyclical and higher educational variables on participation rates was undertaken. Primary source data, necessary for studying the higher educational variable, was obtained from a questionnaire which was constructed and mailed to 1,000 randomly selected married women who were University of British Columbia Graduates from 1922 to 1965 inclusive. The time series analysis indicated that a composite of the variables examined influenced in varying degrees the Female Participation Rates in British Columbia during the 1953 to 1965 period. The economic and educational implications of this analysis have been discussed. Evidence has been given that an underlying, dominant secular trend exists of steadily increasing British Columbia Female Participation Rates. Married Women Graduate Participation Rates have been shown to exhibit a similar rising pattern. Correlation between the two is +.88. Although the secular trend appears to dominate, women are also shown to be affected by both seasonal and cyclical variations. There would seem to be in British Columbia a supply of women who tend to enter the Labour Force when employment opportunities are high and who leave when economic conditions are depressed. Of importance for educational and occupational counselling is the knowledge obtained that the Participation Rates for all British Columbia women have risen steadily from twenty-three to thirty-one per cent over a twelve year period and that the Participation Rates for Married Women Graduates have risen from one and a half to two and a half per cent over the same period. This knowledge implies that some form of vocational training is of vital importance to all girls. Another finding with direct application to the counselling of adolescent and adult women is the strong evidence of the practical value of a university degree. The research showed that economic cycles in British Columbia had approximately only one fourth as much effect on the employment of the Married Women University Graduates as upon the British Columbia Female Labour Force.

Despite a clear case for thinking skills in legal education, the approach to teaching these skills often appears to be implied in law curricula rather than identified explicitly. Thinking skills could be taught as part of reading law and legal problem solving. However, learning the full suite of thinking skills requires active teaching strategies which go beyond exposing students to the text of the law, and training them in its application by solving problem scenarios. The challenge for law teachers is to articulate how to learn legal thinking skills, and to do so at each level of the degree. This article outlines how the nexus between three component skills: critical legal thinking, reading law, and legal problem solving, can be put to work to provide a cohesive and scaffolded approach to the teaching of legal thinking. Although the approach in this article arises from the Smart Casual project, producing discipline-specific professional development resources directed at sessional teachers in law, we suggest that its application is relevant to all law teachers.