Khadija Ahmed’s day begins at 8am with a 1.5-hour drive in peak hour traffic to La Trobe University to attend two one-hour lectures. She then has a 45-minute drive back home to cook food for her kids so they aren’t left hungry when they get home from school. Then it’s time to go to work until around 9:30pm. What’s left of her day is used to work on her assignments and homework.
“So, adjustment wise, there is a number of challenges to be honest,” she tells upstart. “There is finding a balance between working out what someone can do for me while I’m at uni and what I can do when I get home. So just working out a schedule.”
Ahmed is a mother of four with two 14-year-old twin boys and two girls, aged nine and three. She was a dental nurse for almost 10 years on and off between kids, but decided that she wanted to do more and go back to university as an opportunity to grow. With the support of her husband and parents, she completed her nursing degree and became a theatre nurse at Peter MacCallum Hospital.
“I was working with no career progression…that was sort of another eye opener to me that I need to go back to uni and try to live for something that I could grow in,” she says.
Now, Ahmed is studying for her second qualification since making that decision. She is now doing her post graduate degree specialising in anaesthetic and recovery.
“In order to move up as well again, you know, build up your career, you need to specialise within the area,” she says. “So, it’s what I’m doing currently.”
According to data from the 2016 census, 12.7 percent of students enrolled in university are caring for their own children. The same study also found that almost a third of students studying part-time were also parents.
In a survey done by the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education it was found that many student parents were highly motivated to go back to university. However, there is still a lack of accommodation of the needs of student parents in order to facilitate their success.
Terese Edwards from Single Mother Families Australia says her main goal is to provide support to mothers who may not have any, which includes mothers who wish to further their education.
“We make it really clear we’re not a careers advisor, we don’t have that skillset or knowledge,” she tells upstart. “However, what we do, is from time to time there are perhaps scholarships, or changes in policy where there’s some affordable or even free courses.”
“So we will publicise that and then we know that women want career advice and guidance and that’s a real space that’s missing in our public policy.”
Edwards says she has recommended many different options to mothers who are attempting to study, often recommending the Pension Education Supplement through Services Australia. She has also recommended services like Global Sisters who “support women in start-ups”.
Edwards says that further assistance can stop mothers from being forced to drop out of their course due to all the other demands of their life. She is passionate about making sure women are able to study and stay in school.
“If we’re a bit more flexible around our rules for women to finish study, we would then have them finished rather than having incomplete studies,” she says.
Despite the hard work and chaos of her life while she is studying, Ahmed says it’s all been worth it in the end. It is rewarding, and she feels like she has something to show for herself to her children.
“It’s 100 percent doable,” she says. “You just have to know what you’re getting yourself into before you get into it.”
Article: Ella Zammit is a second-year Bachelor of Media and Communications (Journalism) student at La Trobe University. You can follow her on Twitter @EllaJZammit.
Photo: Young working mother cuddling baby and using laptop at home by Sarah Chai is available HERE and is used under a Creative Commons License. This image has not been modified.
