No internship often means no diploma. For many (former) students this is recognizable. Because of the corona crisis there is a great shortage of internships, which can lead to study delay. To combat this, Economy071 and its partners want to create a thousand internships for young people from the Leiden region. This Stagepact071 must ensure that students can find a suitable internship. In addition, the region can continue to have qualified young people at its disposal and companies can scout for new talent.
For many programs, an internship is an important part of the study program. The students gain a lot of experience during this period. MBO, HBO and WO students can now actually apply their theoretical knowledge in practice. When graduates go looking for a job, practical experience is one of the most important parts of a CV. An indispensable part of the education therefore. It is therefore necessary to address the growing shortage of internships. The partners of Economy071 are now going to work on this with the Stagepact071. The cooperation of six municipalities in the Leiden region and the educational institutions must provide a thousand internships in the coming year.
Currently, there are still internships that continue. This allows students to still gain practical experience, online or otherwise. However, the corona crisis is not only reducing the number of internship opportunities, but the content of the internships is also different. For many internships, working from home is now the norm, as it is for working people. However, this is not possible for every internship. For example, mboRijnland indicates that there is currently a shortage of 850 internships. This number may even increase if no measures are taken.
Meanwhile, solutions to the shortage are already being considered, as the report on Stagepact071 shows. There are several places that can use extra hands in this period. So far fifty MBO students have started working at corona vaccination units. They are also assisting at elementary school to cope with the pressure of the emergency shelter. However, these solutions are not yet realistic for every course. Therefore, it is important that companies also cooperate in solving the internship shortage, especially for the long term. After all, even after the corona crisis the shortage must be reduced. The idea is therefore to set up a structural internship network. In this way, internship fairs can be organized and information sessions will be held for new interns. There will also be “internship hunters” on the road to bring employers in contact with the training. In this way more internships can be realized in the long run.
In addition to the fact that the students benefit greatly from the internship pact, this ultimately also benefits the entrepreneurs themselves. After all, in this way qualified workers become available for the labor market. While personnel shortages may have been reduced during the corona crisis, they will often still be a problem in the future.
The organization behind Stagepact071 hopes to see results already this year. So that study delay can be prevented for as many students as possible.
see also: gemeente Leiden BV Leiden Achtergrond informatie Economie071 Projectkaart op Economie071