30% of second year students without an internship

Decreed in September 2023 by Gabriel Attal, then Minister of Education, the compulsory internships for high school students in second grade start Monday June 17. At least for those who have found one. 168,000 young people have not found an internship. Testimonials.

The compulsory internship period for second year students begins Monday June 17. The adolescents are expected to spend the next two weeks under observation in a company, association or institution. A first for this system put in place by Gabriel Attal when he was Minister of Education for “reclaim the month of June”according to his terms.

The period is often deserted by second year students who no longer have classes due to the baccalaureate exams, in particular. 560,000 general and technological secondary school students are affected by this new measure. According to the Ministry of Education, 70% have signed an internship agreement. Which leaves 30%, or 168,000 young people, without an internship.

“I think I’ll stay at home”, laments Bay, a 15-year-old high school student in Paris, internship agreement in hand. The teenager did not find a solution, despite knocking on the doors of numerous companies: “In pharmacies, bakeries, shops, everything! They all refused me,” lists the young girl.

Bay was unable to get help finding her internship unlike her friend Melissa, who accepted the first internship offered to her because there was no “had no choice!” : “Everyone has to do an internship at the same time. I was forced to choose even though I wasn’t really interested in it…“, she slips. The teenager had looked into politics, in vain.

When some have managed to find an internship, others are reassured : “normally, I will find some for the second week” blurted out a Parisian student. “We’re supposed to go to SNU [Service National Universel, ndlr] when we don’t do an internship, but they won’t have the infrastructure to accommodate so many people” added another.

The students are far from panicking, but they are resigned, even angry. “A lot of people in our class don’t have internships. They really left us to fend for ourselves. We just got the dates,” denounces a teenager at the microphone of Franceinfo. “High schools don’t help us find internships. If you have one, it’s thanks to your family.” she explains.

Exams, end of year and back-to-school preparation. The schedule is busy for the next two weeks. Many high schools will not be able to accommodate students without an internship. They had to go there to take workshops “orientation”.

Impossible, explains Olivier Beaufrere, headmaster in Essonne and national secretary of the main union of school heads. “We have practically no staff. I am unlucky enough to be under construction, so how can we accommodate the students? From the start, we made it clear, with the ministry, that it would be extremely tense in this situation. period to be able to find places for all second year students” regrets the head of the establishment.

“The system which makes it possible to accommodate all of these students is entirely undersized”

Olivier Beaufrere, principal in Essonne and national secretary of the main union of school heads

at franceinfo

The principal continues to sign internship agreements and advises those who have not yet found… to keep looking. This compulsory internship period for general and technological secondary school students coincides with that in which vocational high school students are also in companies.