Students are stressed that internships are vital for obtaining experience that would land them a job upon graduation. This is because having experience of the working world is essential in order to get a job.
Students are encouraged to get these skills by interning as much as possible. Internships offer students, as well as recent grads, the opportunity to get a taste of the career market with hands-on experience. And, they’re great for networking, as well. Regrettably, many, if not most, internships are either unpaid or underpaid, giving an unfair advantage to those students who are financially well off.
In Namibia, many employers don’t give jobs to graduates with no experience. We all know that the government has helped students in terms of funding but that does not mean that they don’t have to pay students who are doing internships in the civil service.
Internships tend to be longer in duration and heavier in terms of responsibility. If an intern is doing real work that would otherwise be completed by a paid employee, they are entitled to payment.
Some employers or managers take advantage of interns and give them mindless work that doesn’t build new skills. Interns can be viewed as temporary labour, which isn’t how you want to be seen. Most college students are financially challenged. They need transport money and often have to attend part time classes.
It seems that the government is not financially bankrupt but selfish when it comes to giving money to those who are in need of it. Students suffer more when doing internships than they do just attending class.
During an internship, which is a job opportunity for students to gain experience in preparation for entering the work industry after graduating, a student has to take money from his or her own pocket for taxi money and for lunch. Taxi money to work, taxi money from work to school and from school to home.
University and college students and recent grads eagerly, if not desperately, seek out unpaid internships hoping to gain the necessary experience to land a paid job. Unfortunately, rather than provide a structured educational environment for interns, many employers treat interns like entry level employees without providing them any compensation.
In the end, rather than acquiring critical experience helpful to starting their career, often these unpaid interns end up doing menial work like cleaning the office refrigerator and running personal errands for their supervisors. All the while their colleges and universities continue to charge thousands of dollars in tuition for academic credits, while providing little or no oversight of the interns’ activities. Those employers, some of whom allegedly required their unpaid interns to perform such tasks as getting coffee, making copies and picking up supervisors’ prescriptions, could have compensated their interns and directly benefited from the work and skill set the interns offered.
While it is not illegal for employers to provide unpaid internship programmes in Namibia, perhaps it is time to make such programmes unlawful.
A common sense would be to compensate interns in a work environment that provides on-the-job training, thereby benefitting the employer and the intern. Employers would be free to utilise interns as they see fit, and take advantage of their talents by having them perform substantive work instead of menial tasks. Employers could further assess the interns work performance and potential for full-time employment.
Mostly during a student’s final year, parents could only support students living expenses, but any extras, like cell phone airtime, transportation and lunch money are up to them.
There are thousands of students in the country who go through this kind of financial dilemma. The interns would also benefit from mandatory paid internships because they would receive an actual wage for any variety of tasks they are required to perform.
In Namibia those fortunate enough to land a paid internship are more likely to gain a full-time job offer or higher starting salary than those who complete an unpaid internship.
Offering at least minimum wage to these highly motivated and educated individuals would provide further incentive for them to work even harder to gain full-time employment.
Paid internships also increase the number of paid entry-level employment positions, resulting in a decrease in the unemployment rate. Interns who are compensated also face a lesser financial burden than those who are forced to accept an unpaid internship and simultaneously work a paid position.
Mandatory paid internships would also generate competition amongst businesses competing for talented new recruits, and result in higher salaries for entry-level employees.
But, taking an unpaid internship is out of the question for many students because of the financial strain it would cause. Unfortunately, most entry-level jobs nowadays require some experience within that relative field. In today’s job market, it is nearly impossible to get a job in your field of interest without having several internships already under your belt.
Students from low socio-economic classes often don’t have the luxury of taking unpaid internships because they have multiple responsibilities.
While attending school full-time, many have full-time jobs that they need in order to pay for tuition, families to help support, bills and transportation expenses to meet.
They neither have the time nor the resources to take on internships. When taking an unpaid internship, you actually lose money for working.Many students just can’t afford it.
In addition, many of the best internship opportunities are located in Windhoek, where cost of living is likely to be higher than many students’ university towns and hometowns.
Finally, requiring employers to pay interns a minimum wage promotes the underlying remedial purposes of the Labour Act, to protect workers from detrimental labour conditions and ensure payment for work performed.
Conversely, encouraging employers to offer unpaid internships results in paid employees being replaced by unpaid interns, a reduction in the number of paid employment positions, and the elimination of fundamental workplace rights.
Anyone working for a minimum number of hours, who is set tasks and adds value to a business, is classed as a worker. This entitles them to at least the minimum wage.
