Stairway to employment? Internships in higher education

Abstract

This article aims to shed light on the current debate regarding the role of internships in higher education in graduates’ employability. In specific, it analyses empirical data on a large-scale study of Portuguese first-cycle study programmes, in order to explore indicators of the professional value of internships in the employability of higher education graduates. Results demonstrate that study programmes that include internships tend to significantly enhance graduates’ employability, particularly within the universe of polytechnic and public higher education institutions. Besides the instrumental value of internships, the impact of the nature and structure of the internship on the percentage of unemployed graduates are also discussed. Mandatory internships and the inclusion of multiple, shorter internships throughout the degree are negatively associated with unemployment levels. Results indicate work-based learning can be used as a successful strategy to bridge theoretical knowledge and practice and enhance graduate employability. These findings provide important insights for the evaluation and/or the design of internship programmes in higher education. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Higher education employment Graduate employability Internships Portugal First-cycle degrees

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations

Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Águeda, Agueda, Aveiro, Portugal, GOVCOPP – Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies, Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Águeda, Agueda, Aveiro, Portugal

Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Águeda, Agueda, Aveiro, Portugal, Centro de Investigação de Políticas do Ensino Superior, Portugal, Matosinhos, Porto, Portugal

Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Águeda, Agueda, Aveiro, Portugal, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Águeda, Agueda, Aveiro, Portugal, Centro de Investigação e Desenvolvimento em Matemática e Aplicações, Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

Funding & Acknowledgements

European Social Fund, ESF

Grant: 268/97

Funding text 1: Research reported in this article was financed by the project “Impact of internships on graduates’ employability”, funded through the National Strategic Reference Framework (QREN) and co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF).; Funding text 2: This dependent variable allows us to circumvent the caveats associated with measuring graduate unemployment using a smaller time frame after graduation, as such rates may be deflated due to other national government strategies aimed at assisting (under)graduate students in the development of employment skills and in the attainment of work-related experiences. The Portuguese Ministry for Qualification and Employment launched a cooperative education programme, partially funded by the European Social Fund (“Medida Estágios Profissionais”, created by the Ordinance no. 268/97, 18th of April). At the end of the 12-month professional internship, those individuals who do not find a job afterwards are registered in the regional employment centres as “unemployed individuals looking for a job for more than 12 months”. Although no official statistics are available regarding the percentage of graduates that have benefitted from this programme, it is estimated that more than 20 thousand people aged under 25 have participated in these internships (in “Programa ‘Estágios Emprego’ prolongado até ao final de 2014”, Público (available at http://www.publico.pt/economia/noticia/programa-estagios-emprego-prolongado-ate-ao-final-de-2014-1617691 ). Only when graduates return to the official unemployment database, there is a clear image of the impact of curricular internships in youth unemployment.

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Stairway to employment? Internships in higher education

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