With all the current government hype about internships, their importance in finding permanent work and the inequalities that remain in obtaining such placements, it is with interest that Nick Clegg declined to mention the closure of a state-funded internship programme helping unemployed graduated find work, The Guardian noted this weekend. With all his passionate words on how internships should be available for all and not just the privileged with connections, Clegg didn't find a space in his speech for the no-longer-existing Graduate Internship Scheme.
The Scheme, during the one year it ran, paid for 8,500 graduates to be matched with small business which had registered with universities, offering valuable work experience to those who required it, and even, for a quarter of them, a full-
time job at the end of their stint. For the small businesses which participated, the Scheme rewarded them with high-quality workers whom they could not afford to pay but who benefited from gaining key skills in the world of employment; both parties reaped the rewards. However, the Scheme came to an end because, as John Walker, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses, explained, "the investment needed to keep the scheme going would be more than outweighed by reduced benefits payments and the increased tax-take from those that gain employment as a result of the internship".
The loss of the Graduate Internship Scheme is undoubtedly a loss to the graduates and small businesses alike. Now, mainly large businesses are the only ones which can afford to offer paid work experience to students, but graduates arehaving to resort to unpaid placements so as to gain crucial experience in the world of work. Small businesses are having to devise alternative ways to continue arrangements with universities and colleges to allow such a scheme of sorts to continue without government support. Appleby Parva, a startup company selling luxury British-made accessories for men, is one such example; its founder, Jim Watson described the Scheme as offering his business invaluable resources. "Most of our interns have been designers who have injected a creativity we lack and could never have afforded to employ," he admitted.
Despite graduate unemployment being at its highest level since 1992, the government have no current plans to re-introduce the Scheme, which they say was constructed as a recession measure. A spokesman for the government has been reported as declaring that "the Higher Education Funding Council for England is evaluating the opportunities for higher education students and graduates to undertake high-quality work experience and is due to report at the end of May". Watch this space.
Louise, GRB Journalist
