Belgrade Open School has been working on designing internship programs in order to facilitate and shorten young people’s transition from the world of education onto the labour market since 2012. We aim to help young people acquire work experience and develop skills which are in demand in the labour market. Moreover, we also encourage dialogue and cooperation between institutions, organizations, the business sector and the expert public with the aim of innovating and harmonizing youth policies and employment policies relevant for supporting internships.
Through our activities we have advocated for quality internships because we believe that only these kinds of internships are beneficial to trainees and those providing internships. We insist on applying quality standards in the realization of internships so that trainees could get an opportunity to quickly and efficiently get into the labour market and find quality jobs. In accordance with the EU recommendations, we focus on the issue of legal protection, i.e. contractual regulation of rights and obligations of trainees during the internship program, mentoring process, duration, defined learning goals, financial compensation, program evaluation and issuance of certificates by those providing the internships on the completed internship and acquired competencies.
Our activities in this field are:
Organizing quality internships.
Starting from 2012, we have created and implemented quality internship programs in public administration and in the business sector, which have had great results in terms of improving employability and employment of young people who participated in them. Through these programs we have also helped small and medium enterprises to build their capacities for organizing quality internships, and public administration to improve their procedures for the selection and recruitment of young experts for internships . We are proud that nearly 80 of young experts participated in internships organized by the Belgrade Open School in the 2012-2016 period, and that our data shows that 80% of them got employment after completing the program. The evaluations of internship programs we have conducted show that young participants feel that they have improved their knowledge and skills.
Conducting research and advocacy activities.
In order to contribute to the systematic solving of this issue, we work on improving the legal framework for internships and we encourage the development of the quality insurance mechanism. By drafting legal and policy analysis, organizing a consultative process with a wide circle of interested parties, workshops for sharing experiences, public events, debates and promotional campaigns, we contribute to finding functional and sustainable models for the application of quality standards in organization of internships. We also raise awareness of institutions, the youth and business sectors, on the importance of quality internships and their effects on youth employability. We also work on the popularization of this concept as an opportunity for learning and improving practical skills as an addition to previously acquired knowledge and qualifications in (non)formal education, but we also point out possible ways of misusing them.
Participating in European and regional initiatives for adequate legal regulation of internships, for the protection and fair treatment of all trainees, we aim to transfer valuable experiences onto the national level. We point out the current nature of this topic and level of tendency in European Union agendas and policies for the improvement of youth employability and employment, which highlight the importance of quality internships as an effective mechanism for ‘’obtaining’’ new skills which the job market of the 21st century requires.