“No universally accepted definition of an internship” exists, indicates Stewart (2021: 17-18), and citing The Economist (2014), saying it is “a spell of CV-burnishing work experience”. The terminology (internship), in use for more than a century, originated in medical education, where it denotes a postgraduate period of clinical training of doctors under supervision, but also spread across many other professions and occupational fields to provide knowledge and skills in the workplace. Internships may serve “to satisfy the requirements of education or training courses”; or offered by employment service providers to job seekers as part a labour-market programme; or by established business to offer a taste of the nature of work in a particular profession, or to test out applicants. However, job seekers may further initiate internships in order to supplement résumés, or to gain contacts. Both known as ‘open-market’ internships. Maake-Malatji (2021: 137) indicate that in “South Africa ‘low- or no-pay “creative internships” are proliferating at an astonishing rate”.
Maake-Malatji (2021: 132) indicates that the terms ‘intern’ and ‘internship’ are defined in various ways, frequently depending on the field. A person “employed at an entry-level position in an organisation in a structured programme to gain practical experience in a particular occupation or profession” is usually deemed an ‘intern’ he says, and cites Stellenbosch University’s guidelines “which describe an internship as a planned, structured and managed programme that provides work experience for an agreed period of time”. An alternative description of an internship, he says, is a “career specific work experience that one undertakes during/after one’s studies in order to gain the practical experience required to operate and make a positive contribution with respect to the career path one eventually pursues”.
Stewart, Owens, O'Higgins and Hewitt (2021: 2) cites Ross Perlin (2012), who published ‘Intern nation: how to earn nothing and learn little in the brave new economy’ and who stated “a global fact of life [is that] internships are … a significant source of cheap, flexible white-collar labor and a major steppingstone to affluence and professional success. They grant access to those who can afford them, and block further progress for those who cannot”. Maake-Malatji (2021: 141) says that in South African context are several higher education institutions, “based on their recognition within the national and international spheres, gain leverage for their graduates in the world of work”, contributing to inequality and exclusion for students from an underprivileged institutions. The struggle for resources by underprivileged institutions is prevalent, and says “for black graduates, education is a tool to do away with poverty”.
Stewart et al. (2021: 2) observe that little has changed during the past decade; that “internships have become even more firmly entrenched in the transition from education to work”; and that it “is still not attracting the attention it deserves” as forms of ‘work-based learning’ (p. 5). Stewart et al. (2021: 3) qualify what they mean by the term ‘internship’, or ‘traineeship’ as sometimes called in Europe, “to be any arrangement for the performance of work within a business or organization which is primarily intended to provide experience, skills and/or contacts that will help the worker obtain employment or other work opportunities in the future”. They caution that the definition is far from exact and that “it does not matter whether the internship is undertaken during, after or as part of a formal scheme of education, training or government assistance”. They, however, “distinguish an internship from an apprenticeship, on the basis that the latter seeks in a more structured (if not always formal) way to provide all the skills needed to practise a particular trade or profession”.
Whereas the traditional apprenticeship model “has always been premised on the idea of learning a particular trade or craft, while performing [paid] work to practise what has been learnt and to hone the skills involved”, in recent decades there “has been the steady decoupling of training from paid employment” observe Stewart et al. (2021: 3-4). Furthermore, the prevailing modern form of apprenticeship (and the contemporary ‘learnership’ in South Africa) “typically requires time release from work to attend classes at an educational institution”, “however, on-the-job instruction still remains an integral element of these schemes” explain Stewart et al. (2021: 3). Regardless of what called, “licensing or accreditation schemes often require a period of time to be spent working under the supervision of experienced practitioners” (p. 4).
Several drivers and pressures are causing the disconnecting of training from paid employment, say Stewart et al. (2021: 5). The volatility of global markets on the one hand, and pressure on enterprises to accomplish adequate returns to shareholders on the other, result in reduced long-term investment in training. ‘Grow your own timber’ in-house entry-level training programmes are far less prevalent. It is evident that the costs of training significantly shifted from business to the job seeker, the employee and the state. Often funds for training and education are limited to recovery of Skills Development Levy expenditure.
The pedagogical belief of further and higher education institutions that certain knowledge, and in particular skills, are best acquired through real-life experiences, is contributing to growth of need for internships, alternatively termed ‘work-integrated (or experiential) learning’, opportunities. There is further increasingly a demand for graduates who are ‘work ready’, say Stewart et al. (2021: 5). These two drivers towards, however, are impeded by limited paid-learning opportunities and constraints with regard to state funding made available through Sectoral Education & Training Authorities (SETAs) by means of discretionary grants.
Maake-Malatji, M.I. (2021). The law and regulation of internships in South Africa. . In Stewart, A., Owens, R., O'Higgins, N. & Hewitt, A. (2021). Internships, Employability and the Search for Decent Work Experience, Ch. 8, 130-144. Electronically accessible from https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800885042
Stewart, A. (2021). The nature and prevalence of internships. In Stewart, A., Owens, R., O'Higgins, N. & Hewitt, A. (2021). Internships, Employability and the Search for Decent Work Experience, Ch. 2, 17-33. Electronically accessible from https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800885042
Stewart, A., Owens, R., O'Higgins, N. & Hewitt, A. (2021). Internships: A policy and regulatory challenge. In Stewart, A., Owens, R., O'Higgins, N. & Hewitt, A. (2021). Internships, Employability and the Search for Decent Work Experience, Ch. 1, 2-16. Electronically accessible from https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800885042
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