Representatives of students, MBO schools, teachers, employees, employers and governments signed the internship pact MBO 2023-2027 in February 2023. The goal is to combat internship discrimination. An important part of the pact was “internship matching.
In internship matching, the agreement is for MBO schools to assign internships to students based on competencies and interests, among other things, without the intervention of an apprenticeship company and without an interview with the internship company.
Research by Verwey-Jonker (July 2024) shows that the use of internship matching to combat internship discrimination is not always effective in practice because schools and companies do not fully comply with the agreements of the internship pact.
Disadvantages of internship matching
By applying internship matching, you’re basically telling an intern that identity doesn’t matter. While identity is precisely what makes people unique. Ultimately, the candidate’s identity must be known. As a result, prejudice can still play a role.
Discrimination in the workplace
Internship matching ultimately does nothing for workplace discrimination. Where discriminatory comments are made by employees about, for example, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation, often under the guise of “a joke.
Verwey Jonker’s research shows as much. Among students matched by the school, internship discrimination is no less common than among students who applied themselves. In fact, the survey results point in the opposite direction.
In addition, for some positions, knowledge of a candidate’s cultural background may actually be useful, for example in positions where diversity is a valuable asset, such as customer service in different languages or in international environments.
Thus, internship matching can be in the first step in the right direction but must be part of a broader set of guidance and support. Both for the student and the internship company. Important here is that as an internship company you need to work on an inclusive company culture. Read more about this in our article: “MBO internship: The power of diversity and inclusion in the workplace”.
Does your organization need help creating inclusive policies? We can support this through our trainings on internship and labor market discrimination.
Contact us at info@bureaugelijkebehandeling.nl or call 0320-233327.
This article is part of a series of articles on MBO staging discrimination. Also read our other articles.
