Syrian Fatima Alshawi is studying to become a pharmacist’s assistant at ROC Nijmegen. She wears a headscarf and was very reluctant to find an internship.
“I have lived in the Netherlands for five years and was afraid that they would not hire me because of my origin or my name,” says the MBO student. “Or because I wear a headscarf.” Many students still have to apply and have a ‘click conversation’ with the work placement company where they want to do an internship, to see if there is a match.
Stagematching
The ROC in Nijmegen has already dealt with this: MBO students no longer have to fight for an internship, but are assigned a place by the school at a company as standard. So they no longer have to apply for a job or start a click conversation. This is called stage matching.
If it is up to the cabinet, all senior secondary vocational education programs will have ‘internship matching’, so that students will receive an internship at a work placement company as standard, at least during their first internship. With this, Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf (Education) wants to put an end to internship discrimination. “Because some students still fall by the wayside several times and students feel that society has no need for them. We shouldn’t want that.”
Years of struggle
The battle is not new. Successive cabinets have been trying for years to put an end to discrimination against trainees in MBO. Why will it work now? Dijkgraaf: “The burden of proof is no longer on the shoulders of the student, but on the schools and companies. They will really help the student.”
Numbers
Internship discrimination is the order of the day among MBO students, according to the most recent figures from the Ministry of Education. For example, less than half of the students from ethnic minorities manage to find an internship in one go. By way of comparison: 70 percent of students with an indigenous background find a place in one go.
There is also criticism. Because the student’s freedom of choice is getting smaller: after all, the school takes the lead in arranging the internship. Critics believe that the training companies that discriminate should be dealt with harshly.
Minister Dijkgraaf sees it differently: “It will soon be impossible to discriminate with stage matching. We hope that this method of placement will spread like an oil slick across the schools.” Many training companies and schools have already joined, he says.
Pain
According to Taina Mercer, internship supervisor at ROC Nijmegen, the new approach is badly needed: “We still notice that students with a ‘different’ sounding surname find it less easy to find an internship. The students then get the experience that they are being rejected. pain and we don’t wish that on our students.”
Fatima, the pharmacy assistant in training, is happy with her internship: “I was placed on the basis of my learning wishes and my qualities. That feels like a relief.”
