REPORTING. "We did some research, no one answered" : the struggle of high school students to find an observation internship in June
Launched by Gabriel Attal when he was Minister of Education, the compulsory second-year internship system aimed to “reclaim the month of June“, that is to say keeping adolescents busy during this period when teachers and high schools are busy administering the various baccalaureate exams. If the idea is welcomed by some, others are desperate to find a place .
Indeed, the search for an observation internship can quickly become discouraging. “We did some research, no one answered”, “When they responded, it was mainly for refusals”, explain Noémie and her friend Raïssa. They are at high school in Creil, in the Oise. They are interested in architecture, they knocked on the doors of several firms, but without success. “I don’t have anyone I know who works in architecture so it’s really difficult to find an internship,” adds the high school student.
One of the keys to the problem is the lack of network among young people. Which makes Raïssa a little skeptical about the system: “I find this internship a bit useless because I’m sure that most high school students won’t find an internship in the profession they want, she explains. So it’s going to be a little difficult for businesses and also for us.”
To help these adolescents without a network, the government has expanded the platform “1young1solution”to second year internships by encouraging companies, associations and administrations to propose offers.
“I looked again yesterday and in Paris alone, there were only around ten proposals”, deplores Alexandre, the somewhat anxious father of a young girl who would like to go into law or commerce. Originally, he found the principle of this second year internship rather interesting, especially in the year when he had to choose his specialist subjects, but this independent computer engineer came up against reality: “It’s distressing because it’s obligatory, he said. You have to find one. The ideal is to find an internship linked to the student’s professional aspirations, but at some point, we end up forgetting this. We tell ourselves that we simply have to do an internship, whatever it may be.”
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