“I’ve been looking in the cinema since the beginning of the year, but I can’t find anything. There’s nothing on the site either, it’s a bit rubbish…” As for Lisa, encountered in front of a high school in Nantes, it’s a struggle for some of the country’s approximately 600,000 secondary general and technological students.
New this year, rather than taking it easy in the second half of June, these teenagers will have to complete a mandatory “professional environment” observation course, as Gabriel Attal wanted when he was Minister of Defense. ‘Education. And with less than three months to go before the deadline, the search is proving complicated, even though the government has just put a platform online 1 young person 1 solution supposed to help them.
A number of offers considered too low
Open since Monday, the site does not seem to be very well known to high school students and their parents. And when it is, it already receives its share of criticism, in particular because of a number of announcements (which could have been submitted for three weeks by companies, communities or associations) which is currently disappointing. “For a lawyer internship, only two offers are available in Tarbes and Nice. “It’s a dead end for many families,” the FCPE denounced this Tuesday.
“When I type in my postal code there are no offers available! », Also wonders an Internet user, residing in an overseas department. “In Strasbourg, there are four internships on the platform… All in training, two in an administration,” regrets another, on social networks.
“Undersized and poorly anticipated”
When you look at it a little, it’s true that the site offers a good portion of advertisements from educational establishments, an environment already familiar to high school students. A way of responding to the “general mobilization” requested by Nicole Belloubet, who herself wanted to set an example by publishing an internship offer at the ministry, not to everyone’s taste. “Madame Belloubet takes on a collaborator, but what solutions for the other 599,999? », quips Olivier Beaufrere, principal in Essonne.
For the national secretary of SNPDEN-Unsa, the majority union among school heads, the platform will not solve all the problems. “It’s very risky, and the real problem is that everything was undersized and poorly anticipated,” he regrets. Even the SNU is full for this period. Everyone really needs to get involved if we want to respond to students, particularly from rural areas, or those targeting sectors with difficult employability. »
Already around twenty candidates… for just one place
It is precisely to introduce certain young people interested in this “very closed” sector that Gwenaelle Dumont posted an internship announcement on the famous site. But this illustrator from Nantes did not expect to receive “more than twenty applications” in a few hours… The young woman therefore had to completely improvise as HR director and embark on a complete recruitment process. “I respond to everyone and select the most suitable profiles,” she explains. I have to meet two of them this weekend. For the others, I have set up a waiting list, even if their chances are now very slim…”
In Quimper (Finistère), the Armor Lux company received ten applications in one day, for ten places in its various professions, from production to commerce. “We already have a lot of spontaneous applications but it is our duty to welcome young people, and why not to encourage vocations,” explains Grégoire Guyon, communications director for the famous ready-to-wear brand. Fortunately, we have fifteen days to study all this. »
“A kebab course will bring nothing”
A traffic jam which was to be expected to the extent that unlike 3rd year internships, the dates chosen are the same for everyone, not allowing students to work in the same company. “The idea was interesting on paper, but if it turns into a kebab course or tidying up cans of peas, it won’t do anything,” Olivier Beaufrere already fears, who hopes that as few young people as possible will be left behind. . “In my class, the majority have not yet found anything,” assures Louise, a high school student who is aiming, in vain for the moment, for the communications and media sector.
If the situations will surely become unblocked for some, the ministry has already indicated that students without internships will have to be welcomed into their educational establishment, where they will carry out “documentary research to clarify or perfect [leur] orientation project”. But who will supervise them? Because with high schools becoming exam centers and teachers working on correcting baccalaureate exams, it’s not sure, again, that the calculations are correct…