The Ministry of Education has today started a campaign against internship discrimination: #KIESMIJ. On the site of the campaign different students tell about their experiences. Schools and companies can also find tips to prevent discrimination.
That is desperately needed. The Social Economic Council compared the number of MBO students who had to apply at least four times before they found an internship. One in three students with a non-Western background turned out to have to apply so often. This was only one in seven among native students.
‘Classmates did find an internship’
Noah Hajji, chairman of the Youth Organization for Vocational Education (JOB), also had a lot of trouble when he looked for an internship last year for his Human Technology study in Arnhem.
“At first I didn’t think that was surprising. I thought: there is a lot of competition, so everyone will have a hard time”, 18-year-old Noah tells RTL Nieuws. “But classmates turned out to have this problem much less.”
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Slowly the penny dropped for Noah. “My father is Moroccan, my mother is Dutch. My father said: try to use your mother’s last name. I then set up a kind of experiment to see if it would really matter.”
Noah wrote to ten companies: half with his own surname, the rest with his mother’s Dutch name. “Suddenly I got a lot more response with a different last name. Moreover, even if I was rejected, it was much better substantiated why there was no place for me.”
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Ultimately, Noah was hired at one of the companies he applied for under a different name. Noah: “I immediately confessed that, and that company understood it very much. But employers are also surprised: they don’t realize that something like that can play a role.”
Persistent problem
According to the Ministry of Education, internship discrimination is a ‘persistent problem’. The site of the new campaign therefore contains all kinds of information to combat discrimination, both for students and for schools and internship companies.
Earlier, a Reporting Center for Internship Discrimination was set up. “If a company demonstrably discriminates, it will be punished,” said a spokesman. “Then the recognition as a work placement company will be withdrawn.”
However, Noah sees little use in punishing companies. “Discrimination is very difficult to prove. You often cannot be sure that you will be rejected because of your origins. Even though you know it does occur, you still think: it must be due to other things.”
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He therefore sees more in stimulating companies that do well. “At school there is not much attention for this problem either. When you raise it, the responsibility is often placed with the student. Make sure you don’t make any spelling mistakes, put another picture on your resume, that sort of thing. the student lies. “
‘Companies do not see that there is a problem’
This campaign also puts a lot of focus on the students, says Noah. “It is very non-committal. Companies must take the step themselves to consider that they want to do something about it, and actually do it. But many companies themselves do not even see that there is a problem. Then they will take that step. don’t take either. “
In the meantime, discrimination can have a significant impact on students, says Noah: “If you have experienced something like this, you will have in the back of your mind that you could be discriminated against every next time. You are already at your first step into the labor market. constantly afraid that your background, your gender or your sexual orientation plays a role. You have to deal with that, while you don’t want to. “
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