high school students struggle to find companies for their compulsory internship

Some 560,000 general and technological secondary school students must complete a compulsory observation course from June 17 to 28. Few of them, however, managed to get an agreement signed.

This is a concern for many families. All second year students in general and technological high schools must, this year, complete a two-week internship from June 17 to 28. The government’s desire is to occupy these young people who no longer have classes since establishments and teachers are busy administering the various baccalaureate exams. But many face the difficulty of finding this observation internship. With less than a month to go before the deadline, few young people have actually already found their accommodation.

In this high school in Clichy, near Paris, the students had their internship agreement very early in the year, from October, but the anticipation was not enough. “It is clear that this is an arduous search”testifies Sylvain Dedieu, the principal, also local union representative of the SNPDEN union. “At this stage I have a little less than ten internship agreements for a little more than 150 students”he explains.

Less than 7% of students found their internship in this popular establishment where most families do not have much of a network. But the problem common to all high school students remains the significant concentration of demands to which companies cannot respond, unlike the traditional 3rd year internship spread over several periods. At the moment, all 560,000 second year students are looking for an internship for the same dates.

The educational teams try to help them in their research, but they only have a little time, explains Florent Martin, principal at Argeles-sur-Mer and academic secretary of the SNPDE.

“We try to support young people in research as best we can, but that requires human resources and organizations which are complex for us to implement because we are also at a time of the year when our teachers and our CPEs are very mobilized.”

Florent Martin, principal

at franceinfo

At its Montpellier academy, between 15 and 20% on average of students have found their internship. “I very much doubt that we will be able to place half of our young people”, regrets the head of the establishment. In Loudun, a very rural area in Vienne, the high school relies heavily on its own repertoire of professionals. If 40% of the seconds here landed a convention, they face another obstacle. “The difficulty is that we have students who will have more mobility problems than in areas where we will have public transport. And then some families do not have the means to take their child to school every day. internship”, explains principal Laurent Cardona. The government has set up a website, “1jeune1solution”, with some internship offers, but their number remains limited.