too many students do not receive an internship allowance

NOS News•today, 2:00 PM

Too many students do not receive an internship allowance, according to outgoing Minister of Education Dijkgraaf. That has to change and that is why he is calling on employers. “Every student deserves a positive first introduction to the labor market, which includes an appropriate internship allowance.”

Dijkgraaf has had studies carried out into internship allowances and this shows that it differs per level. In higher professional education, approximately three-quarters of students receive an internship allowance, for university students who do an internship this is approximately two-thirds and in intermediate vocational education this concerns approximately 40 percent of students (in the vocational training pathway).

HBO graduates who follow a teaching course are a negative outlier, says Dijkgraaf. More than three-quarters of interns in that sector do not receive an internship allowance. “At a time of major staff shortages and where we are doing everything we can to combat the teacher shortage, teaching interns should receive appropriate compensation.”

According to him, primary and secondary education must “really take a step forward”. The ministry calls on the social partners in education to arrive at an internship compensation scheme that is equal for everyone. According to the minister, things are already going better than before in a number of other sectors such as construction, hospitals and the catering industry.

One of the studies shows that agreements on internship allowances are missing in a large proportion of the collective labor agreements concluded. Only 10 percent mention compensation for interns. Dijkgraaf encourages sectors to pay attention to this in collective labor agreements.

“I also call on companies, even if no agreements have been made in a collective labor agreement, to provide students with appropriate internship compensation,” says Dijkgraaf. “The lack of compensation or a collective labor agreement, the differences between students, that really needs to change.”

It has been known for some time that internship allowances leave much to be desired. Two years ago it turned out that a quarter of students with an internship were used as cheap labor. And a year ago, Dijkgraaf sounded the alarm because MBO students were doing worse than HBO and WO students.