N O. 2 – 2 0 2 1 T e c h n i c a l R e p o r t INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE Edited by Iztok Rakar ISBN 978-961-262-126-1 (PDF) INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE A Technical Report Edited by Iztok Rakar 2021 Iztok Rakar (editor) Internship in Public Administration Across Europe Technical report series, No. 2 Published by: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Public Administration, Ljubljana, Slovenia For the publisher: Prof. Maja Klun, PhD Layout: Dean Zagorac Cover Designer: Branka Smodiš ISBN: 978-961-262-126-1 (PDF) Price: free copy Edition: Digital edition Type of Publication: E-book Available at: https://www.fu.uni-lj.si/zalozba/ Published: 2021 Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) Kataložni zapis o publikaciji (CIP) pripravili v Narodni in univerzitetni knjižnici v Ljubljani COBISS.SI-ID 86331651 ISBN 978-961-262-126-1 (PDF) INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE A Technical Report Editor: Iztok Rakar Authors: Dagmir Długosz Frédéric Edel Ivan Koprić Štefka Korade Purg Fabrice Larat Kamil Mroczka Lea Nahtigal Natalija Shikova Łukasz Świetlikowski David Špaček FOREWORD This publication is the result of ongoing research of public administration started within the EU-funded project “Support to Comprehensive Reform of Public Administration in Ukraine (ID No. EuropeAid/138732/DH/SER/UA),” coordinated by the Corporate & Public Management Consulting Group SIA (Estonia). This report covers six European countries: 1. Five EU-members (Croatia, Czechia, France, Poland, and Slovenia) and 2. One non-member (North Macedonia). The topics covered are: 1. Legal basis; 2. Organisation; 3. Internship in central and local administration bodies; 4. Mentorship, support and special rights; 5. Remuneration; 6. Mobility. Country reports are prepared1 by top experts in the field and offer clear and under standable information on both legal regulation and practice of internship in public administration. Dr. Iztok Rakar 1 Reports were delivered in the period December 2020 – March 2021. CONTENTS 7 Croatia 17 Czechia 25 France 53 North Macedonia 63 Poland 77 Slovenia CROATIA Ivan KOPRIĆ Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb Zagreb, Croatia ikopric@pravo.hr 1. Introduction There are four categories of civil servants and other professionals employed by the central state and local governments whose status is regulated separately by special legislation. These are (1) civil servants in the state administration (ministries and other central bodies), (2) local servants who serve in the core local and county bodies (administrative offices), (3) public servants employed in central-ly-financed public services, and (4) public servants who serve in local y-financed institutions (kindergartens, libraries, museums, etc.). The status of the first category is regulated by the State Servants Act of 2005 with amendments (Official Gazette no. 92/2005, 140/2005, 142/2006, 77/2007, 107/2007, 27/2008, 34/2011, 49/2011, 150/2011, 34/2012, 49/2012, 37/2013, 38/2013, 01/2015, 138/2015, 61/2017, 70/2019, 98/2019). Local servants and employees are regulated by the Servants and Employees in Local and Regional Self-Government Act of 2008 with amendments (Official Gazette no. 86/2008, 61/2011, 04/2018, 112/2019). Various conditions of the civil service status of public servants classified above into groups 3 and 4, such as internship, state exams, in-service training, etc., may be regulated by special laws, separately for each service and sector. In this paper we analyse internship only in the state and local civil service (classified above into groups 1 and 2). There are two schemes of internship in these two sub-sectors, the traditional and the new one. Both schemes were widely practiced in public administration, but the new one was abolished at the beginning of 2020. Internship in the judiciary is regulated by a separate law, the Interns in Judiciary and Judicial Examination Act (Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia 14/2019), and is not analysed in this paper. 7 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE 2. Traditional internship within the civil service The traditional type of internship is regulated by two main pieces of legislation, the State Servants Act and the Servants and Employees in Local and Regional Self-Government Act. All state administrative and other bodies, as well as all local governments, are entitled to recruit interns, according to their internal acts, recruitment plans, and decisions. Internship lasts 12 months. Students are not eligible for internship during their education. Interns are state or local servants with secondary education, bachelor’s or master’s degrees. The purpose of internship is to train people of adequate educational background but without work experience for autonomous, independent, professional and efficient work at their respective posts. The internship has to increase civil servants’ capacities, ease the internal mobility of staff and increase the effectiveness of public administration. The training of interns is implemented by means of practical work and through learning in line with established programmes. It finishes when an intern passes their State Exam. Since the employment of interns in state administration has to be planned in the annual recruitment plans, the number of interns can be assessed based on these plans. For example, in the core state administration (employing about 29,400 civil servants, without police, military force and some other parts of state administration), it was planned to recruit 794 new civil servants in 2018, i.e. 412 persons with previous work experience and 382 interns (without previous work experience). Local governments also plan their need for interns on an annual basis, but consolidated data on the number of interns in the local government system do not exist. Each local government is autonomous in its personnel policy, but it can be observed that internship is practiced in many cities, municipalities, and counties. For example, the City of Zagreb planned to recruit 53 interns in 2018 (Zagreb employs about 3,000 civil servants and employees). 2.1 Internship in the state administrative and other bodies Internship is a basic career step for civil servants employed by the state. The State Servants Act provides for internship as a first step in the permanent civil service of candidates with the required type and level of education without previous work experience. This type of recruitment procedure is designated “regular”, in contrast to “exceptional”. The internship lasts 12 months. The exceptional recruitment procedure is intended for permanent employment of candidates who have the previous work experience required for certain posts in the state service. This experience is determined by the rulebook on the posts in a state body. 8 CROATIA Regular and exceptional recruitment procedures serve as the entrance to the permanent civil service. The permanent civil service shal , according to the Act be, and in reality is, the normal situation. The Act additional y offers the possibility of recruitment to temporary service in various cases (substitution for a civil servant who is on parental leave or long sick leave, temporary tasks or temporary increase of workload in a body, employment of state scholarship recipients, employment in the ministers’ cabinets, and implementation of EU-financed projects). Experienced candidates are recruited to temporary posts. It is explicitly forbidden to transform temporary service into permanent civil service. However, internship is not intended for temporary posts. It can be concluded that only the regular recruitment procedure leads to employment of interns who hope to realize their career as civil servants. The intention of the Act on State Servants has been to foster professionalization and to reduce political influence over human resource management in public administration. Internship in state bodies is additional y regulated by two important Government decrees. The Decree on publication and implementation of public competition and internal advertisement in the state service of 2017 (Official Gazette no. 78/2017, 89/2019) regulates various types of recruitment, including recruitment of interns through public competition within the regular recruitment procedure. Preconditions and legal barriers for employment of interns are the same as for the employment of experienced candidates, because internship is the beginning of a state servant’s professional career. The Government Decree on forms, methods and conditions of state servants’ training of 2007 (Official Gazette no. 10/2007) regulates certain important elements of internship in the state administration. There are two main parts of the Internship Programme that are the basis for the training of interns during internship in the state administrative and other bodies. The training of interns is led by mentors and controlled by internship monitoring committees. The general part of the state service internship programme is identical for all interns with the same educational level. It consists of a) introduction to the state service and b) preparation for the general part of the state examination. Both training modules are provided by the State School of Public Administration, which is a separate public institution under the control and guidance of the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration and the Government of the Republic of Croatia. The preparation of special parts of the internship programme is decentralized. Each state body has a duty to establish a special training programme for its own interns. It shall encompass three main elements: a) informing interns about and familiarising them with the competences of the body and with regulations relevant to that body and to the profession or types of tasks within that body, b) 9 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE practical work, c) preparation for the special part of the state examination. Final approval and coordination of all the special parts of the internship programme is a task of the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration. Each intern has to get an operative plan of internship programme implementation that is tailored especial y for them. This plan shall contain a list of their tasks, a list of organizational units in which the internship programme is to be implemented, internship monitoring methods, training programmes with detailed schedules, personal names and work titles of all members of their internship monitoring committee, the name of their mentor with their contact data, a form containing the intern’s practice diary, which they are obliged to keep during internship, a form for the mentor’s final assessment, and a form for lodging complaints about the work and behaviour of the mentor during the mentorship. Mentors are the best state servants of the state body in which the internship takes place. One state servant may mentor up to five interns if they have only secondary education, or up to two interns, if they have bachelor’s or master’s degrees. Mentors are in charge of everyday management of internships. Mentors are responsible to the internship monitoring committees. Mentors have the right to special monthly remuneration and the right to a proportional decrease in their regular workload. Special remuneration is decided on by the Minister of Public Administration. In reality, mentors are not paid for their mentorship because of the lack of finances. Interns assess their mentors at the end of their internship. A special form for the final assessment of mentors has been prepared by the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration. An internship monitoring committee requires at least three members appointed by the minister or other managing state officials. In principle, internship is linked to the state body in which the intern is selected in the public competition procedure. Internal mobility within the same organization during internship programme implementation is explicitly mentioned in the Act on State Servants. The potential for mobility across organisations is also open. It depends on agreement between two or more state officials that lead the respective state bodies. The intern is assessed at the end of the internship period. If they receive an assessment of “not satisfactory”, their state service will be terminated by an act within eight days after the internship period has expired. If such an act is not issued within eight days, there is a presumption that they have satisfied the internship requirements of the state service. An intern who has satisfied the internship requirements of the state service will be sent to the state examination procedure. There is an obligation for interns to pass the State Exam within six months in a maximum of two attempts. 10 CROATIA The internship ends with the state examination as regulated by the Government’s Decree on the procedure, methodology, and programme of the state examination (Official Gazette no. 61/06, 145/12, 1/14, 11/15, 124/15, 27/17). The Ministry of Justice and Public Administration has a duty to organize state examinations for all state and local servants and for other public servants who perform state administrative tasks as part of their regular work based on special laws. The examination body is the State Examination Committee, whose seat is lodged at the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration. The same Ministry performs clerical work for the Committee. The costs of the state examination are paid by the state body that sends the intern to the examination. However, the interns pay a full or proportional share of examination costs if they do not pass the exam on the first attempt. The legal consequence of failing the state examination for interns recruited to permanent state service is termination of their state service. If they do not pass the exam within the six-month deadline, their state service ends ex lege. The intern has a right to remuneration equal to 85 per cent of the salary for posts at their educational level but of the lowest complexity, as well as all other rights, duties, and responsibilities as prescribed by the Act on State Servants and other relevant regulations. 2.2 Internship in local governments Internship in local governments is obligatory for all recruited candidates without the necessary work experience in their respective profession and at the required educational level. The consequence is that every candidate with work experience at a lower educational level or without their profession and with work experience in their respective profession and at the requested educational level but of shorter period than requested for a certain post is obliged to serve a period of internship. Public competition is obligatory as a recruitment procedure for interns in local governments. Interns shall be recruited only for temporary local service. The internship lasts 12 months. However, permanent local service can be offered to interns who successful y complete their internship and pass the State Exam without a (new) public competition. This possibility can be used only if there is a vacant post. The Servants and Employees in Local and Regional Self-Government Act regulates only the basic issues of internship in local government, but details can be regulated by local by-laws. According to the Act, the training of interns is led by mentors and controlled by an internship monitoring committee. The training consists of practical work and learning, according to the programme decided by the local mayor on the proposal of an administrative body head. 11 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE The mentor monitors the intern’s work, gives them instructions and guidelines, and helps them to prepare for the state examinations. The mentor is a local servant employed by the same local administrative body. The head of that body appoints the mentor. Financial compensation for mentorship is decided by the mayor. Interns are obliged to pass the State Examination at the end of their internship at the latest. On firm grounds, the deadline for passing the State Exam can be prolonged by up to three months. The costs of the first State Exam are paid by the local government sending the intern to the Exam. 3. Internship without civil service employment The new internship scheme was introduced in 2009 by the Labour Act as a measure for the preparation of young people for the labour market. After April 2011, the new scheme was explicitly provided for and regulated in some details by amendments to the State Servants Act. It was more frequently used after 2012 because the participants were remunerated and the employers financial y supported by the state. The coverage of that measure was very wide, and it could be utilised in various labour sectors, including the civil service. Although the measure was not tailored particularly for the civil service, the conditions were more favourable in public administration than in the private sector. This type of internship took place without employment, on a strictly temporary basis, with significantly reduced rights for participants, who were declared, by law, not to be civil servants. Recruitment plans for internship without civil service employment were also issued annual y, but in a decentralised manner. The consolidated data about the total number of participants in this scheme in the state administration and in the whole public administration do not exist. However, the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration has published the individual recruitment plans of state bodies since 2014. For example, 454 participants used this opportunity in 2010, while there were 1,423 participants recruited during 2015 and 2016. Moreover, there was an assessment that in the whole public sector (with about 400,000 employed people), there were, on average, 10,000 participants using this measure at any moment. This scheme was abolished after 1 January 2020, but the relevant legal provisions regulating internship without employment in the state administration and local government have not been abolished. Although such regulation is currently ob-solete, this scheme could theoretical y be reintroduced in the future. 12 CROATIA 3.1 Internship without employment in the state administrative and other bodies This internship scheme enabled young people without the work experience necessary to enter the state examination procedure and without the possibility of acquiring initial work experience in their profession, to fulfil the necessary pre-conditions for taking the State Exam and thus to increase their chances of employment in the civil service. There were no special rights or advantages of this type of intern after completion of the internship. The State Servants Act explicitly states that people selected for this internship scheme are not state servants. However, the duration of the internship counts as a condition for possible later state service employment in regard to professional experience. The duration of the internship was 12 months. This type of intern could pass the State Exam after completion of the internship. The costs of their state examination were paid by the state body in which the internship took place. Each selected person and the state body concluded a contract about mutual rights, obligations, and responsibilities. Some details of the selection of candidates were regulated by the Government Decree on conditions for selection and selection procedure for professional training without employment in the state bodies (Official Gazette no. 100/2011). Conditions for selection were a) unemployed status (in terms of formal y registered unemployment in the official register of the Croatian Employment Service); b) secondary or higher education, c) profession and level of education appropriate for the post in the state administration for which they will be trained; d) non-existent work experience, and e) no legal barriers to employment in the state administration. A public announcement (not a competition) was published by the Croatian Employment Service at the request of a state body, on the basis of a need declared by that state body, when financial resources were provided. The decision on the selection of candidates who expressed interest was made by the minister or other state official leading the state body. The selection procedure was thus decentralized and highly autonomous, even arbitrary (with frequent public claims about the non-transparency of the procedure). There were no legal remedies against such a decision, except a complaint to the same official according to the general rules on administrative procedures. Candidates under 30 years of age with at least 30 days of official unemployment status were eligible. Students and candidates over 30 years of age were not eligible. In 2018, the intern had a right to monthly compensation of 2,751.84 kuna (about 370 €), paid by the Croatian Employment Service, and a right to travel expenses, paid by the employer. The Croatian Employment Service also paid social con-13 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE tributions and education costs (if these existed) for these interns. While in the beginning financial resources for this internship scheme were combined from the state budget and the EU funds, later they were ful y provided through EU funds. The coordinator of this scheme was the Croatian Employment Service. All state bodies were able to include this scheme into their annual recruitment plans, but they needed to get the previous consent of the ministries of public administration (for the need and capacity for internship) and finances (for financial resources). The interested state body had to prepare a training programme which included the mentor’s name. The mentor had to fulfil conditions with regard to profession, level of education and work experience at relevant posts, according to a form prepared by the Croatian Employment Service. 3.2 Internship without employment in local governments Internship without employment in local government was regulated as in the state administration. The Servants and Employees in Local and Regional Self-Government Act prescribes only a few rules. The head of the respective local administrative body signs a contract with the intern on behalf of the local government unit. The Act explicitly cal s for the application of the General Labour Act to the status of these interns. Other elements, such as those on the selection procedure, which were regulated in the state administration, were left to autonomous regulation in local by-laws. However, all conditions prescribed for this internship scheme had to be fulfilled, and were monitored by the Croatian Employment Service as the coordinator. Among them were the training programme, which included the name of the mentor who fulfilled the conditions with regard to profession, level of education, and work experience at relevant posts. 4. Conclusion For a decade, Croatia had two internship schemes that functioned simultaneously. Although the new scheme was more popular and more frequently used, at the expense of the traditional one, it was abolished at the beginning of 2020. The traditional internship scheme in the state administration is intended for preparing new state servants for their permanent careers. It is an initial phase of career development in state administration, one which combines practical work and programmed learning focused on preparation for the State Exam. Since local governments employ a significantly smaller number of people than the central state, legal regulation for traditional internship declares it to be a temporary, limited local service which can be continued if there are vacant posts, but 14 CROATIA not necessarily. Such internship is thus not a necessary initial phase of the local service. The new internship scheme was more flexible and less regulated. It was time-limited, with very narrow rights for interns. It was part of the general measures for combating the unemployment of young people, mostly financed from EU funds. The issues connected with implementation of that measure in public administration were non-transparent selection procedures, huge turnover of interns because organizations tended to replace interns at the same post without employment, and weak chances of finding a vacant permanent post after completion of such an internship. Decreased expectations of young people regarding job security and permanent careers in public administration were among the most important long-term outcomes of the new internship scheme. These side effects, along with a lack of money from the state budget for the continuation of its funding, influenced the decision of its abolishment. The traditional form of internship is still in use in the Croatian public sector. About the Author: Professor Ivan Koprić is a Tenured Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, president of the Institute of Public Administration, Croatia, and editor-in-chief of the international scholarly journal Croatian and Comparative Public Administration. He is president of the Scientific Committee of the Croatian Academy of Legal Science, and a member of the Scientific Council for State Administration, Judiciary and the Rule of Law of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is currently leading a project team of the University of Zagreb in charge of co-creating new European University of Post-Industrial Cities (UNIC). He is the author and editor of more than 30 books with the most recent Referendum and Direct Democracy in Croatia (2021), Administrative Science (2021), and Migrations, Diversity, Integration, and Public Governance in Europe and Beyond (2019). He has authored more than 130 scientific articles and several hundred professional papers and contributions. 15 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE References State Servants Act of 2005 with amendments ments (Official Gazette no. 86/2008, 61/2011, (Official Gazette no. 92/2005, 140/2005, 04/2018, 112/2019) 142/2006, 77/2007, 107/2007, 27/2008, Interns in Judiciary and Judicial Examination 34/2011, 49/2011, 150/2011, 34/2012, Act (Official Gazette of the Republic of Croa- 49/2012, 37/2013, 38/2013, 01/2015, tia 14/2019) 138/2015, 61/2017, 70/2019, 98/2019) Servants and Employees in Local and Regional Self-Government Act of 2008 with amend- 16 CZECHIA David ŠPAČEK Faculty of Economics and Public Administration, Masaryk University Brno, Czechia david.spacek@econ.muni.cz 1. Introduction This technical report outlines to what extent internships are allowed and practiced in public administration (PA) in the Czech Republic. It deals with internships for pre-service training of students of higher education institutions (HEIs) and internships for in-service training (of civil servants). In Czechia, internships are general y allowed, but are not ful y recognised by legislation as a compulsory part of in-service or pre-service training (in this case as a requirement imposed on applicants for positions in the PA). Neither the Act on Civil Servants of Municipalities and Regions (No. 312/2002) nor the Act on the State Civil Service (No. 234/2014) (i.e., two general acts specifying the requirements for work in the Czech PA) lists internship among the entry requirements for work in the Czech PA or among the provisions on in-service training. Moreover, there is no national standard on the content of PA study programmes that would require compulsory internship for students. Internships are, however, recognised among the practices of universities and have been developing as a result of the attempts to link study programmes to practice among accreditation criteria. Stil , internship may not be among the required components of curricula, and their length varies across study programmes. 2. Legal Basis There are two general acts on civil service currently in place. They relate to the civil service in its narrow sense: they regulate administrative civil servants, i.e. those performing civil service in public authorities. The legislation distinguishes between civil servants in self-governments (municipalities and regions) and civil servants in state service authorities. The employment of civil servants in self-gov-17 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE ernments is regulated by Act No. 312/2002, the general Labour Code and, in some cases, also by other laws. The State Civil Service Act relates to civil service exer-cised in central administration authorities (ministries and other central bodies) and bodies within such (e.g. various inspectorates, financial administration bodies, employees of the Czech Social Security Administration etc.), as well as administrative offices with nationwide tasks directly controlled by the government and listed in the Act on Responsibilities of Ministries and Other Central Authorities and some agencies (e.g., the Office for the Protection of Competition). However, the two acts relating to administrative civil servants in Czechia do not ful y recognise internship. There is only a general provision (in the State Civil Service Act and in the Labour Code) stating that internship leads to the interruption of civil service and is considered a change of the service relationship. Otherwise, the legislation on civil service is not more explicit about internship. In the case of the state civil service, the practice should follow State Civil Service Act No. 234/2014, namely Article 44 (on changes to the service relationship) or Article 67a (on internships of national experts in EU institutions). If a civil servant has worked in civil service at least 5 years without interruption, he/she can apply for leave from the service in order to attend education or a professional internship for up to 12 months (Article 69). The state civil servant is not entitled to leave from the service to attend an internship. This is based on a decision by his/her state service authority. However, internships are not specified in the current legal framework on in-service training – the Government resolution no. 865/2015 and the regulation of the Deputy of the Minister of the Interior for the State civil service no. 9/2015 on the Framework rules for training. The former State Civil Service Act (218/2002), replaced by the current Act 234/2014, spoke about expectants (“čekatel”) and anticipated that these persons would prepare for the civil service for 12 months, after which they would become state civil servants. However, this instrument is not used in the current legislation. In the case of civil servants of municipalities and regions, internships are subject to Article 199 of the general Labour Code (Act 262/2006) (on personal barriers to service), whereby internship is considered as a reason for leave from the civil service. So again, it is recognised and allowed by the legislation, but not clearly specified by the Act and supplementary legislation. Some provisions that may be relevant for internship of civil servants in various workplaces are recognised in the general Labour Code, especial y its provisions on the professional development of employees (specified in Section II of the Code). This section of the Code distinguishes particularly these types of in-service training that can be relevant for internship: 18 CZECHIA ■ professional practice for graduates (there is a general duty that employers are required to ensure that graduates obtain adequate practice for improve-ment of their practical experience and competences needed for the job), ■ upgrading of qualifications (“prohlubování kvalifikace”; the Code provides that employees can continuously upgrade their qualifications in order to better perform their tasks; this includes maintaining a qualification or its renewal, for instance after returning from maternity leave), ■ increase in qualifications (“zvyšování kvalifikace”; this means an increase in the value of qualifications, owing to education, training or other means of raising the level of education). An employee can conclude an agreement with his/her employer regarding an increase in his/her qualifications, containing the provision that the employee will work for the employer (at least 5 years). Although this can be relevant especial y for civil servants of self-governments (because the lex specialis – the act 312/2002 – is rather short), it has not been explored whether this tool is used at al . The tool can also enhance the continuous, in-service training as provided in the act among the components of in-service training (besides this, entrance education is differentiated, together with acquiring specific expert competence that is required for civil servants without the relevant education). In the case of secondary education students, apprenticeship is provided by the Act on Schools (561/2004). In practice, it is regulated by a contract between a school and an employer. However, since internship in public administration usual y involves university students, apprenticeship will not be further specified in this report. In the case of university students, the Act on HEIs does not regulate internship explicitly. Internship is usual y regulated by a written contract between a university and an organisation accepting students. 3. Organisation Because internship is no longer regulated by the legislation on civil service, internships may in practice be organised as a decentralised practice based on a decision by the management of a public authority and as part of the continuous training aimed at improving the qualifications of civil servants. Moreover, it is usual y also a decision by individual employees, as outlined above. Formal requirements are normal y arranged in cooperation with the relevant HRM department. 19 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE There is no other special scheme except those general y recognised by legislation, as outlined above. That may be why internships in public administration have not been evaluated in the reports published by the Ministry of the Interior – the ministry that coordinates in-service training of civil servants and the civil service in Czechia. In the case of pre-service training, internship is usual y based on a contract concluded between the higher education institution and an organisation that accepts students as interns. 4. Internship in central ad local administrative bodies 4.1 Aim and objective As already emphasised, internships are not sufficiently acknowledged in the legislation. This area is thus ful y decentralised, and internships are based on the decisions of civil servants and approval from their employers (the regulation is similar for State service authorities and for the civil service in municipalities and regions). Special agreements can be concluded for upgrading the qualifications of a civil servant, but this is particularly relevant for internships of civil servants employed by self-governments (municipalities and regions). So far, no analysis has been made of whether and to what extent this is used in public administration. In the case of the State civil service, special legal provisions relate to internships of national experts in EU institutions. There is a special programme known as NEPT (National Expert in Professional Training) for internships in the European Commission. This programme is coordinated central y by the Ministry of the Interior. According to the programme, the aim of internship is to improve knowledge and expertise in a sector of the European Commission selected by the applicant based on his/her field of specialisation (Ministerstvo vnitra, 2020). 4.2 Participants There is no research dealing with in-service training and internship of civil servants in the Czech public administration. Although such internships may exist, our experience shows that in Czechia interns are usual y students of full-time undergraduate and master’s study programmes. In the case of in-service internship, there is no institution of public administration established to manage internships and interact with other authorities. Each head of a state authority or self-government (municipality/region) or even the 20 CZECHIA head of a department existing within them (based on formal lines of responsibility defined by their organisational code or, usual y, also informal y) independently decides whether to employ an intern. The selection of students for interns may vary in practice. A general principle is that – following national accreditation criteria for external evaluation of study programmes – internships are considered an important component of curricula, sometimes compulsory, sometimes voluntary, that should be incorporated into a study programme in order to comply with quality (accreditation) criteria regulated by the Act on HEIs (Act 111/1998 and supplementary regulations). In the case of our study programme, students are free to choose an institution where they would like to carry out their internship. Universities usual y develop their own networks of host institutions from which students can select. Because internship is not recognised in the legislation, interns do not have special rights or advantages when later applying for a job in the civil service. On the other hand, the fact that a person has undergone internship in a public authority may be perceived as valuable experience by the employer. Moreover, at least in some cases, interns do become regular employees of public authorities. 4.3 Mentorship, support and special rights As with internship, mentorship is not legal y regulated, either, but this does not mean that no such instrument exists. Mentors are usual y assigned to help interns in practice, which is the case for many interns in pre-service training. Additional y, they are sometimes provided in the adaptation schemes applied by public authorities, although there is no provision thereon in the Czech civil service legislation. 4.4 Remuneration As regards State civil servants, the State Civil Service Act provides that they are, in principle, not entitled to salary during the internship period. If an internship is agreed within the framework of the Labour Code, which may be especial y the case with interns who are civil servants of municipalities and regions, civil servants are entitled to remuneration. If not agreed otherwise between an employer and an employee, the Labour Code provides that employees are entitled to leave and a salary compensation in the amount of their average salary. Likewise, remuneration of students is not regulated; hence, students are usual y not remunerated. However, this is again ful y decentralised, and some students who are interns may receive payment for exceptional involvement, etc. 21 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE 4.5 Mobility There is no actual regulation on internship. However, in some cases, there may be mobility within a public organisation for pre-service training (attended by students), as well as in-service training (of civil servants). In the case of pre-service training, experience in our study programmes indicates that interns may be introduced to the functioning of a given department (sometimes a key one) in a public authority. Nevertheless, it is not easy to estimate the exact share, because this is decentralised and usual y depends on a public authority, its experience with internship, its positions for interns, etc. The case is similar for in-service training. 5. Conclusion As outlined in the report, internship is no longer regulated by the Czech legislation on civil service. Its practice also varies across the country because internship is no longer regulated by the law on higher education institutions. On the other hand, internship is clearly acknowledged by the law on HEIs as an important element in quality assurance of the HEIs, since they have to prove to accreditation bodies (either national, or university) that they are active in this field. However, there is no requirement that internship should be made an obligatory part of study programmes, and in some cases it is voluntary. Additional y, there is no specification of the length of an internship. The practice of internship may vary across public authorities. Our experience with running two study programmes focusing on the public sector and public administration indicates that the quality of an internship is usual y determined by the experience of those public authorities that accept interns and by the length of the internship. The coordinator of internship that usual y exists at universities is also rather important. In some cases, internship may be organised, even planned, and students are introduced to organisations and may work on relatively demanding tasks. On the other hand, there are public organisations that see interns more as assistants for copying documents and other secretary-like tasks. Although this is also an important component of civil servants’ tasks, in these cases students are not properly introduced to the functioning of public administration. Our experience suggests that students, too, can influence the content of their internship, even during their first contact with a public authority and later on site. 22 CZECHIA About the Author: Dr. David Špaček is an Associate Professor at Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration. Main research fields are public administration reforms, e-government, quality management and HRM. Full bibliography is available at: https:// www.muni.cz/en/people/77120-david-spacek/publications References Act 111/1998, on Higher Education Institu- Ministerstvo vnitra (2020). Program stáží tions. NEPT, online, available at: https://www.mvcr. Act 262/2006, Labour Code. cz/sluzba/clanek/program-stazi-nept.aspx (accessed on 2 February 2021) Act 218/2002 on the State Civil Service. Špaček, D. (2018). On the system of intern- Act 234/2014 on the State Civil Service ships in civil service – the case of the Czech Act 312/2002 on Civil Servants of Territorial Republic (prepared within the RREN project, Self-governments. unpublished). 23 FRANCE Fabrice LARAT École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) Paris, France fabrice.larat@ena.fr Frédéric EDEL* École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) Paris, France frederic.edel@ena.fr 1. Introduction Internships in public administration can take different forms. Chauhan (1978) identifies 3 general types of internship programs that are proposed in both public administration schools and academic institutions. The first one, the “pre-academic internship program” is usual y considered as offering orientation internships that will permit the student to discover in which public administration she/ he wants to work. The second one, “concurrent internship”, consists of a work-study program comprising periods of internship and school attendance. Final y, the third type called “post-academic” comprise full-time internships for a long period (9 to 12 months). In France, the “concurrent internship” is the most common type of internships. Internships in public administrations have been considered as a core part of French civil servants’ training since 1945. ENA ( École Nationale d’Administration), the national school of public administration, in charge of selecting and training high level public managers, was the pioneer school to devote a substantial part of its training program to internships (Racine 1946). Like ENA, other schools of administration such as École des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique (EHESP), Institut national des études territoriales (INET), or the Instituts Régionaux d’Administration (IRA) follow the same model of mandatory internships. * With contributions from Tess Boudouresques (École nationale d’administration, intern). 25 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE Thanks to periods dedicated to internships in public administration bodies, incoming civil servants are supposed to develop particular skil s and competences in order to be immediately efficient at the end of the training period and ready to carry out their tasks and responsibilities. For this purpose, besides theoretical teaching, they need to have a clear understanding of the concrete issues they will have to deal with in their upcoming professional career and to gain a practical approach to a government official’s day-to-day life. It is not only public administration schools that offer this kind of opportunity. In fact, any student wishing to take an internship in a public administrative body can apply as part of her/his higher education programme. In this case, what is at stake is the civil service’s attractiveness for students and young citizens. This need may be partial y met by developing and strengthening opportunities for professional experience within it. Thus, there are two distinct schemes of internship in public administration that will be presented in this study: internships for civil servants as part of their pre-service training (I) and internships in public administrative bodies for students as part of their professional orientation process (II)1. 2. Internships for civil servants as part of their pre-service training 2.1 Introduction French public service is divided into three branches (central government, local government and hospitals). Although civil servants can be recruited on a contractual basis, the main path of access to the three civil service branches is by competitive examinations. The recruitment (organization of the competitive examinations), the pre-service training and in some cases the in-service training (lifelong learning) are in the hands of several dozen schools and training institutes set up by the government. These specialize in different fields of activity (police, customs, tax administration, prisons etc.) and in different levels of responsibility (public service managers i.e., “level A”, and senior executives i.e., “level A+”). For each branch, dedicated schools or institutes are in charge of preparing incoming civil servants before they are appointed to their first positions in the civil service2. 1 Post-academic internships for a long period of 9 to 12 months are unusual in France. Thus, these won’t be discussed in this paper. 2 Today there are 38 schools in charge of training civil servants in different fields of activity and function. See Réseau des Ecoles de Service Public (www.resp-fr.org) 26 FRANCE Internships form an integral part and a key component of French pre-service training: 80% of civil service schools combine periods of teaching and of internship. Internships represents on average 35.5% of the training programs time.3 How important they are is well reflected by the time dedicated to internships compared to the total duration of the training programmes, as well as by their weight in the general assessment of trainees. In fact, the grades received as part of the internship assessment have a strong impact on the trainees’ final ranking, which itself determines the kinds of jobs and positions for which they may apply at the end of the training programme. 2.2 Legal basis In France, the legal situation of civil servants is defined by statutory and regulatory dispositions, most notably the General Statute of the Civil Servants ( Statut général des fonctionnaires). In-service training ( formation continue) provided by schools and institutes of public administration is regulated by laws and bylaws (ordinances, decrees). This legislation requires the government to set up an in-service training policy and to recognize the right of the public servant to in-service training. As for pre-service training ( formation initiale), the training curriculum and the exams (assessment of the trainees) are also regulated through bylaws (ordinances, decrees, etc.). Practical details related to internships are normal y regulated by internal regulations ( réglement intérieur) that must be approved by the school’s or institute’s supervisory board ( conseil d’administration), chaired by a high-ranking government representative. During their training period and as the result of the selection process based on competitive examinations ( concours), trainees are called fonctionnaires stagiaires, i.e., they are civil servants on probation and, as such, they are paid by the schools for the duration of their training, including during the internship period. They become permanent civil servants only after the final exit competition at the end of the training period. To cover travel or accommodation costs when the place of internship is not located in the same place as the school or institute providing the pre-service training, financial compensation is foreseen ( indemnités de stage). The rate used to calculate the amount due for compensation is based on bylaw regulations4. For 3 Rapport IGA/CEGEFI, «La formation initiale des fonctionnaires de l’Etat dans les écoles du service public », novembre 2011. p. 41. https://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/storage/ rapports-publics/124000076.pdf 4 Décret n° 2006-781 du 3 juil et 2006 ; as well as Arrêté du 3 juil et 2006 fixant les taux des indemnités de stage prévues à l’article 3 du décret n° 2006-781 du 3 juil et 2006 fixant les conditions et les modalités de règlement des frais occasionnés par les déplacements temporaires des personnels civils de l’Etat. 27 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE internships outside France (such as in the case of ENA, see below), a special rate has been determined in accordance with the Ministry of Finance. 2.3 Organisation and general objectives Internships are normal y considered as an “investment in the future”, meaning that they constitute a way of reducing front-end costs (McCaffery, 1979). “The public service internships provide the student with a work experience to give her/ him a realistic exposure to an organizational-bureaucratic environment (...). This experience should develop the student’s awareness of the internal dynamics of an organization (...). The internship experience provides the students one of the few opportunities to test the skil s and attitudes development discussed in his/ her academic program in an environment which may be hostile to some of these concepts” (Chauhan, 1978, p. 100). As part of pre-service training, internships seek to give trainees the opportunity to gain experience in a new environment. They are designed as a real professional experience and not just a period of observation or discovery. Through internships, probationary civil servants should have the opportunity to acquire professional skil s by being placed in professional situations like those they will encounter as “ful ” civil servants. Only internships make it possible to contextualize the knowledge learnt as part of the training curriculum and, at the same time, to carry out professional action in a situation where errors are normal y without consequences because they are supervised. From a pedagogical perspective, internships as a special form of training have different yet complementary objectives, such as discovering administrative reality and becoming familiar with organizations, actors and policies, evaluating the trainee’s capacities and skil s in situ, and, final y, as a form of socialization through intensive contact with future peers, especial y with regards to work ethos and ethics. All these aspects seek to prepare the incoming civil servants to fulfil their future duties and tasks and to meet their employers’ expectations. On top of these general objectives, some schools and institutes may have more specific ones. Internship in central and local administration bodies as a part of pre-service training Even if some variations exist, the following common patterns can be found for all kinds of internships organized as part of pre-service training in France: ■ A significant part of the training is dedicated to an internship period; internships represent between 35% and 62% of the time dedicated to training in such programmes (see table below). Given the great variety of jobs and positions open to trainees at the end of the training programme in some 28 FRANCE schools like ENA or École nationale de la magistrature (which is in charge of training incoming judges), successive internship periods are organised in different kinds of host government organisations to offer trainees a fla-vour of different situations and kinds of jobs. ■ A minimal duration of 17 weeks, and an average duration of 41 weeks, that shall make it possible for the participants to spend enough time in the host institution to understand how it works and to be involved in its activities. ■ The selection of relevant host institutions and the placement of the trainees, the choice of the person within this institution who will supervise the intern (the maître de stage), as well as the assessment of interns are under the responsibility of a dedicated structure within the schools and institutes (Internship’s office/ direction des stages). ■ The institutions hosting the interns are public organisations themselves: at the central level (ministries, public administrative bodies), or at the local level (deconcentrated bodies of the state administration, local authorities). In the case of ENA, an internship is also foreseen in a company with the aim to give trainees the opportunity to understand the needs of the private sector. ■ During the internship, the intern is under the responsibility of an internship supervisor ( maître de stage), who is in charge of giving her/him tasks to perform as well as insights about public administration life in general, and the host institution, in particular. ■ The internship relates to the content of the curriculum (courses and sem-inars delivered by schools or institutes): interns are supposed to apply knowledge and competences acquired as part of their studies, and practical knowledge will simultaneously be acquired as part of internships and will nurture their understanding of what they have learnt from a theoretical perspective. 29 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE Comparative importance of internships in the training curriculum of some French schools of public service (situation as of March 2021) Total Total dura- Part of the Part of Num- dura- tion of the intern- the in- Interna- School’s name ber of tion of training ships in ternships’ tional in- intern- intern- (theoretical the total evaluation ternship ships ship courses + training in final (YES/NO) periods internships) duration grade IRA 1 24 weeks 48 weeks 50 % ND NO ENA 2 46 weeks 76 weeks 61 % 39% YES INET (training programme for “conservateurs” and 5 33 to 39 “administrateurs weeks 72 weeks 46 – 54 % ND NO territoriaux”) INET (“ingénieurs en chef”) 3 17 to 19 weeks 48 weeks 35 – 40 % ND NO EHESP (training pro- YES (but gramme for hospital 3 48 not man- director) weeks 96 weeks 50 % 40 % datory) ENSP 4 36,5 weeks 72 weeks 51 % ND NO ENM 13 77 weeks 124 weeks 62 % ND YES Internships at the Instituts régionaux d’Administration Publique – IRA (pre- service training for «level A» managers)5 The 5 regional institutes of administration are state public institutions under the authority of the Prime Minister. The training offered by the regional administration institutes aims to build a dynamic and diversified career path, open to the various environments of the state civil service. The training of “attachés d’administration” in the IRA is intended to meet the expectations of administrations and trainees for their first position. As the result of an important reform in 20196, internships are no longer integrated into the training period stricto sensu, (training period reduced from 12 to 6 months), but directly follow the in-school learning 5 https://www.fonction-publique.gouv.fr/score/ecoles-de-formation/ira-et-ena/ira 6 Décret n°2019-86 du 8 février 2019 relatif à la réforme des modalités de recrutement et de for- mation au sein des Instituts régionaux d’administration. 30 FRANCE period. The purpose is to foster integration into an administrative environment and practical use of the methods and knowledge learned at IRA. First period: in-school learning (6 months) The first period is divided into three parts. The first one ( phase com-mune) consists of a 9-week training period aiming at giving IRA trainees a common knowledge foundation, including an assessment of competences and knowledge at the beginning of the period. This shall allow individualized and adapted learning according to the trainees’ needs and objectives. During the second part ( phase d’ap-profondissement), trainees can develop some knowledge in greater depth. The last part ( phase de contextualisation) begins right after the trainee’s choice in terms of job orientation and/or future administration. The courses focus then on the profession’s requirements. Second period: in-job posting period Since 2019, internships have been transformed into an “in-job posting period”. According to their ranking (grades received as part of the evaluation process) at the end of the first period, IRA trainees choose a first posting on a list and are temporarily appointed (pré-af-fectation) to this position. During the first two months of this second period, they are still considered as trainees and benefit from tutor-ing and support in taking up their position, while during the last 4 months of this second period, they are considered to have been on probation before being confirmed (or not) in their position. An individualized follow-up (including a period of additional training) is organized during the last part of the second period. Internships at École Nationale d’Administration – ENA (pre-service training for A+ managers) ENA selects and undertakes the pre-service training of senior French civil servants. It offers a curriculum that alternates between periods of study and intern-ships7. At ENA, internships are seen as a way to apply practical knowledge in a concrete setting. As in situ training periods, internships provide participants 7 Ordinance No. 45-2283 of October 9, 1945 relating to the training, recruitment and status of certain categories of civil servants, and establishing a civil service directorate and a permanent civil administration council; Decree No. 2002-49 of January 10, 2002 relating to the missions, administration and financial regime of the National School of Administration; Decree No. 2015-1449 of 9 November 2015 relating to the conditions of access and training at the National School of Administration. 31 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE with the opportunity to experience different environments and responsibilities. Internship are a key element of its pedagogy (Gérard, 2019)8. As for pre-service internships organized by schools of public service in France, the competency-based approach to training plays an increasing role in training curricula, and more and more schools use competency frameworks. At ENA, it includes a range of technical and behavioural skil s, as well as three major competences: “Design, implement and evaluate public policies”, “Manage transformations in public action” and “Carrying-out the essential missions of the State”. Internships contribute actively and widely to the acquisition of these skil s by familiarizing trainees with budget management or human resources. During internships, the student can also work on his legal skil s through the drafting of regulatory texts or defence briefs. In order to develop behavioural skil s, the internship supervisor ( maître de stage) shall entrust the trainee with a task to carry out autonomously, such as the responsibility for a project or mission, which will be the occasion to practice coordination and leadership. Throughout the training programme, the laureates of the four competitive access examinations ( formation initiale des élèves issus des concours) benefit from individualized support provided by a professional coach (a senior official or former senior official). The objective of this newly implemented system is to help trainees to develop their competences, in particular their behavioural skil s and to offer advice regarding the different situations they might be confronted with, including during the internships. ENA’s internship department oversees the choice of host institutions. Its director ( Directeur des stages) and the two deputy directors (who are all senior civil servants) first gather the trainees’ preferences and constraints as to geographical location. They then assign trainees to an organization chosen from a pool of host bodies in France and abroad with whom ENA entertains longstanding relationships (several departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, French embassies, European Union institutions for the first internship, and prefectures and local entities for the second one). There are two internship periods. 8 The Cycle supérieur de perfectionnement des administrateurs, the other pre-service training programme of ENA has a 7-month duration and includes a 9-week internship. It is dedicated to experienced public managers who have been selected to become senior civil servants (A+ level). 32 FRANCE The «international» internship (14 weeks) Its main objective is to enhance the trainee’s understanding of the diversity of diplomatic occupations and tasks by experiencing the reality of international relations. Interns participate in the French’s state actions abroad, or in European Union institutions or international organisations in terms of bilateral or multilateral relations. Besides deepening their understanding of international issues, it gived them an opportunity to practice English in a professional environment. The “Territory” internship (32 weeks, including 2 months spent in a private company) This internship is designed to allow interns to develop a thorough understanding of the various fields of action related to the territorial administration, so as to develop the required skil s and competences. Most trainees will work directly under the supervision of a prefect and a few with local authority executives. During the internship, they also join an SME. The objective of this two-month «business mission» is to make them aware of the needs of the private sector, more particularly those of small and medium-sized enterprises. During each internship, there is an internship visit by the Directeur des stages or by one of his deputies, with the double purpose of giving the trainee feedback and advice, and of collecting information from the trainee’s supervisor and colleagues about the quality of her/his work. Together with the report to be drafted by each trainee at the end of her/his internship, with the evaluation form filled in by the internship supervisor ( maître de stage) and a discussion with a jury consisting of practitioners and ENA’s Director of the internship department, all this contributes to assess the trainees’ performance and to evaluate their behaviour as well as the skil s and competences acquired through the internship. How important internships are for pre-service training at ENA can be seen with regards to the weight of the marks given in relation to the internships, marks which represent no less than 39% of the total. Internships in the training school for local government civil servants: INET Created in 1990, the “Institut National des Études Territoriales” (INET) offers pre- and in-service training to managerial staff of large local and regional au-thorities9. INET is for the local civil service the equivalent of ENA for the state civil service or of the School of Senior Studies in Public Health (EHESP) for the health civil service. Most of the trainees at INET become directors or heads of 9 https://inet.cnfpt.fr/en 33 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE departments (finance, budget, human resources) in municipalities of more than 80,000 inhabitants, in departmental councils ( conseils départementaux) or regional councils ( conseils régionaux). The pre-service training of the “administrateurs territoriaux” (A+ level) lasts 18 months, more than half of which is carried out as internships. The training is based on alternating between theoretical contributions and practical situations through internships and collective projects in the local and regional authorities. Trainees go through two types of internships. Observation internship (Duration: 4 weeks) The objectives are to understand the specific issues of a local or regional authority, its general organisation as to staff and competence issues, its internal functioning and its interaction with its institutional environment. It also aims at better understanding local public services and their relation to users. The student writes an “astonishment report” reflecting a personal analysis of what she/he has observed. (2) Thematic internship (Duration: 6 weeks) The objective is to conduct a public policy analysis at the local level, especial y considering interaction with multiple stakeholders of a public policy or from the point of view of the internal functioning of a local authority. In both cases, the trainee’s supervisor ( maître de stage) drafts an evaluation report that is sent to INET. Internships at the school for hospital directors (EHESP) The École des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique 10 was created by the Public Health Act of 2004 in order to provide France with an outstanding, international y recognized school of public health11. Its health care institution management program is designed according to work-based learning. It consists of a curriculum of 21 months plus 3 months on-the-job specialisation (hospital institution, company, European or non-European hospital), including 17 classroom teaching units and 2 work placement (i.e., internship) training units with a total duration of 12 months. 10 https://www.ehesp.fr/en/the-school/ 11 Order n°2005-921 of 2 August 2005 + https://www.ehesp.fr/en/programs/civil-service-executive-degree-programs/health-care-institution-management-program/ 34 FRANCE ■ Hospital work placement: First part (February to April of the 1st year): observation and getting to know the hospital setting: activities, roles and organization, institutional operation and strategic issues. The objectives can be adapted for those with prior hospital experience. The location of the work placement is selected from a list approved by the school. The second part (January to August of the 2nd year) as intern «in-command» in the same hosting hospital as during part 1. Detailed objectives are defined at the beginning to ensure professionalization and personalisation of learning. ■ External work placement. Period: August/October of the 2nd year. Location: either in a foreign health establishment – the school, will pay part of the cost of the work placement--or in France, in a private company. Objectives: observation and analysis of management methods regarding foreign hospital practices and public health policy. The trainee is mentored by a supervisor ( maître de stage), whose role is to establish a learning program in line with the objectives of the internship previously validated by the EHESP, to facilitate contact with the staff of the host structure and to monitor the progress of the internship until its evaluation. Internships at the school for police officers (ENSP) The School for Police officers (ENSP) was created in 1941 and reorganized in 2012 to train police officers and commissioners/superintendents ( commissaires de police) after they have been selected through a competitive examination and before being appointed to their first position12. It also provides continuous training courses for other police officers, elected officials and senior administrators or companies. The pre-service training for police commissioners lasts a total of 18 months, starting in September of year N and ending in June of year N + 2, after graduation. This program is divided into 4 parts13: 12 http://www.ensp.interieur.gouv.fr/ 13 Arrêté du 11 juin 2020 portant organisation des périodes de formation initiale des élèves officiers et officiers stagiaires à l’Ecole nationale supérieure de la police. 35 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE Phase 1: teaching ■ Part 1 is focusing on «fundamentals of security issues» and lasts 18 weeks, including a 3-week discovery training for students not preparing for the master’s degree, ending with assessment tests. ■ Part 2, with a focus on «deepening police techniques» lasts 23 weeks, including a 5.5-week internship. This phase is also evaluated. ■ Part 3 of the “fundamentals of the profession of police superintendent” lasts 43 weeks, including a 20-week long internship and ends with professional skil s assessments, the presentation of a study report and then the establishment of classification and choice of position. Phase 2: Internship This phase of internship is called «adaptation to employment», lasting 2 months, which consists of an internship in a position similar to that of the chosen position after leaving ENSP. At the end of this period, a jury assesses the suitability of the officer for the position. Internships at Magistracy National School (ENM) The Magistracy National School was founded in 1958 and is in Bordeaux. Initial-ly called the Judicial Studies National Centre, it is the sole institution providing pre-service training for magistrates of the French judicial order. The main objective of the pre-service training programs is to teach future magistrates professional know-how and practices, such as judgment act redaction or conducting judicial interviews. This is why more than 60% of the curriculum is dedicated to internship periods. While evolving in their future professional environment and by discovering professional interactions and stakes in the field, the interns can develop professional skil s. These internships are supervised by magistrates in office in the jurisdictions and by training supervisors ( maître de stage) and coordinated by the internship office director (Direction des stages) . The internships include the following: a 12-week internship in a law firm or office; a 2-week internship with a police investigation team; a 38-week internship period in different jurisdictions; 3 weeks with a team in charge of legal protection for youth and minors ( protection judiciaire de la jeuness e); a 7-week external internship (including the possibility of a 3-week international internship); a final preparation internship of 11 weeks, including 1 week of preparation for taking up the new position after leaving ENM. 36 FRANCE 3. Internships for students not related to civil service training 3.1 Introduction Internships seems to be increasingly common in students’ educational trajectory. In fact, as an INSEE survey shows, in 2016 in France, 8 out of 10 graduating students were working while enrolled in a higher education program. More than a third of these students have accumulated at least 6 months’ mandatory professional experiences. Many reasons can explain why internships are nowadays a widespread component of a student’s curriculum. First, it can offer students many valuable and professional competences. It can also help them to develop a professional network (Granovetter, 1973), as it contributes to establishing personal and professional links (Barbusse et al., 2007) that the student will be able to mobilize for their entry into the job market and over their entire career. Hence, internships can be considered as the “transition phase” between a student’s education and starting their professional life (Giret, 2012). Access to public organisations via internships is also possible for students who are not studying in a pre-service training program14. In fact, secondary school and high school students have the opportunity to apply for internships in public organisations. Such internships take place either as a free initiative or as a mandatory part of a curriculum (for instance, for master’s students at the university). No official figures are available about the number of internship opportunities offered each year in the French public administration (central administration and local bodies), but as for state administration, around 10,000 internships have been offered each year so far, with an ambitious target of 40,000 for 2021. According to the Minister in charge of the civil service, the objective is to alleviate the lack of attractiveness of the civil service among young people and to stimulate them to work in public administration as a result of the experience gained during internships15. 14 Apprenticeship, which allows the apprentice to pursue work-related training, is not included in this study because the apprenticeship contract is an employment contract, unlike the internship. According to a statistical note of 20 July 2020, the French civil service had about 34,900 apprentices in 2019: 20,600 in the territorial civil service, 12,600 in the state civil service and 1,760 in the hospital civil service. 15 Bastien Scordia, “Le gouvernement veut beaucoup plus d’apprentis et de stagiaires dans les administrations”, Acteurs Publics, March 18th 2021. As for local bodies, the municipality of Paris (number of staff: 52,000) states that it hosts around 3000 interns every year. https://www.carri-eres-publiques.com/actualite-fonction-publique-etudiant-cherche-stage-dans-l-administration-desesperement-ce-qu-il-faut-savoir-avant-de-postuler-d-234 37 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE Students seeking an internship in a public administration have different aims: for some, discovering the environment of public administration is part of their professional orientation strategy; for others, gaining professional experience in the field of public administration follows the aim of better preparing for the competitive examinations to access the civil service. Each public organisation has its own procedure for advertising internship opportunities and selecting applicants. The organisation of internships is regulated by a mandatory agreement ( convention de stage) between the student, his/her university and the host institution. Before the start of the internship, the agreement shall careful y define the conditions for its development, such as the following: ■ The legal framework in which the internship takes place (nature of the training, legal provision, whether insurance is foreseen, etc.); ■ The definition of the activities to be entrusted to the trainee, taking into consideration the internship objectives; ■ Organisational aspects such as the dates and duration of the internship, information on the internship coordinator at the university ( coordinateur de stage) and the internship supervisor ( maître de stage), as well as the evaluation procedure; ■ Working conditions (working hours, reimbursement of travel costs, etc.). 3.2 Legal basis In order to avoid improper engagement of traineeships, employers in the public sector (as well as employers in the private or voluntary sector) are submitted to strict regulations16 concerning the recruitment of trainees, the conditions of employment, maximum duration, compulsory remuneration, maximum number of internships during a certain period, and the time between two traineeships. 1 – Recruitment of trainees No internship agreement may be concluded for the following reasons: ■ to carry out a regular task corresponding to a permanent position, ■ to cope with a temporary increase in work load as to the host organisation’s activity, ■ to take up seasonal employment, ■ or to replace an employee or agent in the event of absence or suspension of his employment contract. 16 Loi n° 2014-788 du 10 juil et 2014 tendant au développement, à l’encadrement des stages et à l’amélioration du statut des stagiaires 38 FRANCE 2 – Duration of the internship The duration of the internship(s) carried out by the same trainee in the same hosting organisation cannot exceed six months per teaching year. A decree establishes the list of higher education programmes for which this period of training may be exceeded. 3 – Remuneration of trainees When the duration of the traineeship within the same hosting organisation exceeds two consecutive months, the internship must be remunerated monthly. Its amount is fixed by decree, at a minimum level of 15% of the hourly legal rate defined in accordance with Article L. 241-3 of the Social Security Code (about 420 euros/month as of February 2021). The wage is payable to the trainee from the first day of the first month of the internship period. Its monthly amount is fixed and is not based on the number of working days in the month. 4 – Rights and obligations of trainees In the event of pregnancy, paternity or adoption, trainees shall be entitled to leave and leave of absence for the same duration as that provided for staff members (only for traineeships lasting more than 2 months); the internship agreement must include the possibility of leave and leave of absence during the period of the internship. Trainees have access to the administrative canteen under the same conditions as the host organisation’s staff and also benefit from the payment of transport costs. Even if the trainee is not considered an employee, she/he must respect the rules of the hosting institution (working hours and legal working hours). 5 – Pedagogical supervision The educational institution, together with the receiving organization and the student, agrees through the internship agreement about the skil s and competences to be acquired or developed during the internship period. This agreement also defines how this internship period fits into the student’s curriculum. A responsible teacher within the university’s faculty is appointed to make sure that the internship period runs smoothly and that the stipulations of the agreement are respected. As for the host organisation, it must appoint a tutor/supervisor in charge of welcoming and accompanying the intern. This tutor/supervisor is also responsible for ensuring compliance with the pedagogical stipulations of the internship agreement. 39 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE 6 – Rule followed by some administrations to limit internships for civil servants’ children When they seek an internship in a public administration, children of civil servants have the advantage of being close to the source of information when internships opportunities arise. This is especial y the case if the internship offer is not published but only disseminated through social networks and word of mouth. Aware of the problem, a few administrations have taken specific measures to limit the risk of dynastic recruitment. For instance, at the supreme financial jurisdiction ( Cour des comptes), a son or daughter of a judge cannot work in the office of his/her relative, nor serve as an intern in another unit beyond a certain number of months (L’Horty, 2016). At the Ministry of the Economy and Finances, a statistical survey of all agents has been conducted to measure the proportion of “sons and daughters” in recruitment for internships and summer jobs. Nevertheless, such an initiative remains rather isolated. 3.3 Organisation Special provision for middle and high school students who are social y disadvantaged: Although the objective of diversification of origins and profiles developed for the recruitment of category A officials ( fonctionnaires de catégorie A) is not taken into consideration when it comes to internship s (L’Horty, 2016), an act17 amended the Education Code to promote internships for school pupils who are social y disadvantaged in all administrations of the French public service (as well as in the associative sector, which often has a para-public dimension). Since internships play an increasing role in the professional integration of young people, this law recognizes the right of secondary school students enrolled in schools situated in priority education areas ( zones d’éducation prioritaires) to choose a public administration in which they wish to intern18. Since the targeted public according to the law is rather young (secondary and high school students), this internship is still only called a “professional observation period”. 17 Loi n° 2017-86 du 27 janvier 2017 relative à l’égalité et à la citoyenneté, JORF n°0024 du 28 janvier 2017. 18 “Any student who receives a national secondary school scholarship or a high school scholarship and any student from a priority educational institution may, at his or her request, complete this observation period in a State administration, a territorial community or a public institution” (above-mentioned law, article 188 [nonofficial translation]) 40 FRANCE 4. Conclusion 4.1 Vontributions and limits of internships in public administrations As mentioned above, internships are a key element in civil servant pre-service training, and at the same time a valued means for students to gain access to public administration as a future employer at the end of their education, or when they are still making-up their mind about their professional orientation. From a management viewpoint, experiential learning is “an ongoing process and involves a complex set of relationships, resource mobilization, program planning, structured supervision, and evaluation” (Chauhan, 1978). While there is broad consensus about the pedagogical objectives and added value of internships as an organized form of learning involving different kinds of participants, their success or failure depend on various intervening factors. They can represent significant opportunities for the interns and contribute to their professional development and to the attractiveness of public administration, but in some cases they also have negative effects, and their benefits might be weakened by shortcomings and various abuses as well as inequalities. 4.2 Internships as an opportunity for students, education and training institutions and hosting organisations In a study on key components for successful internship programs, Diane Hamilton and Roger Pajari have established a list, which does not pretend to be ex-haustive, of the taxonomies of stakes for the different stakeholders in internship programs (Hamilton and Pajari, 1997). The stakeholders are the following: students, faculty coordinators, academic institutions, host institutions, potential employers, and professional and accrediting associations. From helping students to acquire work-related skil s, enhancing academic institutions’ reputation and status, providing host institutions with low-cost, educated supplemental staff and opening potential employers access to a pool of professional y trained graduates with successful internship work experience from which to recruit new employees, the advantages of internships are numerous. Several studies have shown that a student who has successful y completed her or his internship is more likely to be hired by employers than another student who has not. In these terms, internships can be considered as a mean to facilitate the transition from education toward professional activity. This transition is made possible by the professional contacts, portfolio of experiences and work the trainee acquires during internships. This itself depends on the level of implication 41 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE and the quality of the pedagogical supervision provided by the host institution, keeping in mind that from their perspective, supporting interns in their learning process represents a kind of investment in terms of attention and of human resources mobilized. At the same time, public administrations also take advantage of internship programs. First, trainees are an opportunity to have an efficient working force at a lower cost, which is not negligible considering the limited budget they must cope with. Another benefit is that by taking interns, host institutions contribute to the training of potential future employees, in case some of them will be recruited when they get their university degree or when they are finished with the training programme provided by schools of civil service. Furthermore, internships can be a means to attract talented people to the civil service: in fact, when an internship experience proves to be positive, a student is more likely to join the civil service afterwards. Final y, from the perspective of academic institutions or schools of civil service, sending students or trainees as interns has many advantages, as wel . Such internships will enhance the pre-professional preparation of the students or trainees and enhance their employability, while formalized and regular working relationships with prestigious hosting institutions are of benefit to their reputation and status and for academic institutions, facilitate the placement of students in professional positions after graduation. 4.3 Strengths and weaknesses of the socialisation process through internships Based on a review of education and communication studies, Stephanie L. Dailey considers that internships serve as anticipatory socialization for full-time employment, because they teach potential full-time employees about a prospective organization, vocation, or role. Identification and organizational encounter contribute to this process: interns may experience identification through working and communicating with organizational employees, and while working with them, interns can develop new, more realistic work expectations, thus narrowing any work expectation-reality gap they may have (Dailey 2016). As for the civil service, internships organised as a mandatory part of pre-service training do indeed make a major contribution to the socialisation process, helping to transform in-coming civil servants into real professionals--not only in the sense that they get a good command of the administrative knowledge, techniques and skil s needed, but through adapting to their new environment as wel , in particular with regard to the social expectations of public officials. 42 FRANCE There are two main reasons that internships are valued among trainees, the public administrations which host them on a regular basis, and the schools of civil service which organize internships. Enriching the learning experience of interns with practical administrative skil s and knowledge is the first advantage. Furthermore, internships give them the opportunity to better understand actual challenges relevant for their future job, such as society’s transformations and citizen’s demands towards public managers. Internships are actual y about acquiring new information and social knowledge. And this knowledge includes discovering the content of their new job, developing strategies for interacting with new colleagues and supervisors, learning formal rules, informal norms and routines and understanding their new organization’s culture. Exchanges with colleagues, observation of good practices and of what is considered as exemplary - or on the contrary as decried – behaviours, are significant forms of professional learning19. As such, internships organized for in-coming civil servants form a key part of their professional socialization through the acquisition of contextualized knowledge and know-how and transmission and in-ternalization of values and codes of conduct, all this having a strong sense-making function. Thus, according to Moyson, Groeneveld and Van de Walle’s typology, internships can be considered as a form of organizational socialization, i.e., as the process of mutual adaptation between an organization and its new members. With institutionalized socialization, organizations invite newcomers to think and behave according to pre-established roles, therefore encouraging them to follow very structured processes (Moyson, Groeneveld, and Van de Walle 2018). This undoubtedly contributes to developing their professional identity and makes future integration easier. Yet, peer to peer conformity towards expected behaviours is not always only beneficial. The tendency to adopt without any critical distance the attitudes and behaviours of the group to which one seeks to belong should not lead to conformism. This can undermine the trainees’ capacity and willing-ness to “think outside the box”, to welcome innovation, to take risks and to become change managers. 4.4 Shortcomings and abuses in the organisation of internships The reasons that internships are successful are rather simple: first, they offer an opportunity for interns to develop applied professional skil s and knowledge and are a means to enrich their learning experience. Furthermore, internships give them the opportunity to better understand actual challenges, such as society’s de-19 Chauhan argues that the experience gained during internships will help the trainees/interns to better understand the internal dynamic of the organization hosting her/him (Chauhan, 1978). 43 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE mands and transformation. Yet, there are some shortcomings and abuses in the way internships are organized and conducted that can undermine their success. Duration of internship Considering the length of internships as shown in the comparative table of internships’ duration in French administrative schools (Figure 1), we see that the average length of an internship is 35 weeks (8.7 months). However, some internships last only a couple of weeks, while others can last 5 months. According to Chauhan, there is no standard time specification for the internship experience. While internship programs with a strong professional orientation emphasize a learning experience extending over a couple of months, for others, one may doubt that a proper understanding of the practical aspects of administration can be developed within a short period (Chauhan, 1978). Organizing internships (for both the host and the sending organization) represents an important investment in terms of time and human resources, as well as for the intern, who must adapt her/himself and needs time to discover the varied aspects of her/his new professional environment. Hence, duration matters and should be determined in close relationship with the intensity of the expected learning outcome. Lack of supervision As mentioned previously, internships, from a conceptual point of view, can be a positive component of student formation when improving their learning of a large range of technical, behavioural, operational and theoretical skil s. Nevertheless, it is important to highlight that an internship’s added value depends on its operational development, taking into consideration criteria such as time devoted to the intern’s supervision, the quality of the internship environment and of the support available. First, a clear-cut delineation of participants’ roles and responsibilities is essential, and the legitimate interests of the intern should not be unduly constrained or sacrificed for academic or administrative convenience (Chauhan, 1978). Chauhan also stresses the key role of the supervisor ( maître de stage) as an initiator, proposer and acceptor to enhance the intern’s experience. His/her role is also key in evaluating the level of learning reached and adjusting both the intern’s behaviour and the tasks assigned by the host organization to make the internship a strong path to learning20. A deficiency in supervision due to low commitment by the host organization as to its pedagogical duties, or because of a lack of time or of human resources will harm the intern’s capacity to plainly benefit from the internship’s advantages. 20 According to the “charte des étudiants en entreprise”, signed in 2006 by Gérard Larcher and François Goulard, respectively Minister responsible for employment, work and professional integration of young people and Minister responsible for higher education, “The purpose of the internship is part of an educational project and only has meaning in relation to this project.” 44 FRANCE Misuse of internship’s real purpose Another downside highlighted in academic studies is the abusive use of internships by some host organizations, which are mostly interested in having a qualified but underpaid work force (Domingo, 2005). Internships organized under such conditions were criticized in 2005 by the Génération Précaire social move-ment, an initiative of young job seekers who were disappointed by accumulating long-term and highly demanding internships without the prospect of being recruited subsequently21. This has led to reconsidering internships’ regulation with the objective of ensuring that internships are an opportunity and not a constraint for students. In these conditions, internships contribute to precariousness and undermine the interns’ confidence in host organisations. In such cases, internships can be considered as an abusive management practice taking advantage of a juvenile work force (Agulhon, 2007). Poor supervision combined with a high level of expectations regarding the tasks to be performed, as well as low remuneration in comparison to the work done--these are the main contradictions that are critiqued by management studies and by some students themselves. Beyond this critique of the form taken by some internships, some are also criticising their efficiency. This concerns both their efficiency in terms of the student learning process and the student’s professional insertion. As for internships in public administration organised as part of pre-service training, a shortage of qualified work force in the host organisation can produce tension between, on the one hand, the pedagogical objectives as defined by the schools of civil service sending the trainees and, on the other, the needs and expectations of the host organization. The priority for them is that the trainees should be total y available for the tasks to which they are assigned, whereas this leaves little room for other forms of learning experience. 4.5 Internships: a source of inequality? In the context of an open society and of a competitive labour market characterised by a shortage of jobs, the possibility for students to get an internship is nowadays often a comparative advantage in view of getting a job, and even more for getting a social y valued job, in the private and in the public sector likewise. Like any internship, internships in a public administration constitute, in addition to educational, economic, social or cultural capital, a distinctive resource that is becoming increasingly valued by individuals, especial y when they are entering the labour market. Consequently, access to internships can be a source of social inequality, since the chances for access to an internship in a public administration are sociological y not the same for everyone. 21 “Instead of being a factor for integration into employment, internships would be cumulative, turning into precarious traps for young people who are nevertheless qualified” (Giret et al., 2012). 45 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE Unequal access to internships: social, geographical and educational inequalities The more selective recruitment is, the more it is necessary to screen candidates with similar abilities, and the greater the risk that extra-professional criteria will be used in the selection process to differentiate between candidates (L’Horty, 2016, 30). An administration must therefore pay close attention to the distinction criteria it uses to accept or reject an internship application. This particularly holds true because discrimination in access to a traineeship is punishable by a criminal penalty of three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros. Discrimination within the meaning of criminal law is established if an application for a traineeship is made subject to one of the criteria prohibited by the Criminal Code (Article 225-1). Some studies indeed show that access to internships is not free of discrimination with regards to the following criteria. Inequalities based on origin and residence A 2016 study provides several proofs of the existence of discrimination in access to employment, based on origin and residence: applicants of North African origin are disadvantaged when applying for the hospital civil service (public hospitals) and for the local civil service (local authorities). The same can be observed for applicants who indicate that they live in a social y disadvantaged neighbourhood (L’Horty, 2016, 80-85). These findings on access to public jobs are very likely to be transposed to students’ internships in public administrations. Two surveys carried out in 2014 and 2018 in the private sector also report seri-ous social and territorial inequalities in access to internships in companies, even when the internship is integrated into a training course and when it is organised by the secondary and higher education institutions concerned. These surveys show that young people attending schools in priority education zones are faced with restrictions in the scope of opportunities, owing to mechanisms originating not only from employers, businesses, but also from the educational institutions themselves. Indeed, education teams anticipate discrimination by recruiters by choosing to no longer guide certain categories of students towards certain types of traineeships, on the reason that they want to protect them from racism for instance. (INJEP, 2018; Dhume-Sonzogni, 2014). The difficulty for working classes to find internships in the private sector is therefore very likely to be transposable to the public sector. Inequalities based on the academic curriculum A 2016 study indicates that most interns at the French Court of auditors and at the State council ( conseil d’Etat, i.e. the highest administrative court) come from a small number of higher education institutions, including the Paris institute of political sciences ( Science Po Paris), a few business schools and one or two law faculties (L’Horty, 2016, 38-39). 46 FRANCE Furthermore, a 2009 study highlights the existence of inequalities between different French higher education institutions, schools and universities regarding the internship opportunities they offer. Prestigious and elitist schools and universities with a wide network of contacts in companies and public administrations offer better opportunities for internships to their students than other higher education institutions Such inequalities exist even between programmes within the same type of institution (science/business curricula at the same university, or even between programmes with the same content at the same university), schools with integrated preparatory courses or schools with post-graduate preparatory courses. Students are therefore not equal in their access to internships (private or public) depending on the academic programme in which they are enrolled (Escourrou, 2009). The impact of unequal access to internships: unequal access to public jobs Not all internships have the same value: a 2012 study shows that only certain types of internships provide an advantage, general y those that are carried out as part of professional, selective and high-level training, because they usual y offer the longest, most remunerated and best-supervised internships. And yet, “one of the risks is that the internship may reinforce initial inequalities in terms of levels of diplomas and qualifications more than reducing them” (Giret and Issehnane, 2012, 45). As a result, unequal access to internships in the public sector can lead to unequal access to jobs, both public and private. A 2016 study points out that access to a traineeship in the civil service represents an initial professional experience that increases the chances of accessing another traineeship or even of getting a job on a contractual basis. Having one or more experiences can increase the chances of succeeding in competitive examinations to access the French public service, as well (L’Horty, 2016, 33) and so to become a civil servant ( fonctionnaire). In particular, it makes it easier to answer scenario questions during the written or oral tests or to answer any question that requires prior knowledge of the professional environment. 47 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE About the Authors: Dr. Fabrice Larat is Head of the department of curriculum development and research at ENA. His main fields of research are values and ethics of the civil service, training and recruitment of high level civil servants as well as issues of administrative cooperation in the European Union. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Revue française d’administration publique. Dr. Frédéric Edel is Lecturer and Researcher at the École nationale d’administration. He is also Lecturer in public law at the University of Strasbourg. His main areas of research are public law, the civil service, fundamental freedoms, in particular the relationship between public authorities and equality or non-discrimination, under different aspects. He is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Revue française d’administration publique. References Agulhon C., 2007 « Les formations du supérieur et laires», Aix-en-Provence, Presses universitaires de l’emploi », Analyse des pratiques de la recherche à Provence. la formation, Vol. 54, p. 165-169. Domingo P., 2002, «Logiques d’usage des stages Beebe A., Blaylock A., Sweetser K.D., 2009, «Job sous statut scolaire», Formation Emploi, Vol. 79, satisfaction in public relations internships» Public p. 67-81. Relations Review, Vol. 35, p. 156–158. Escourrou N., 2009, «Les inégalités inter- Chauhan D.S., 1978, «Education for Public Ser- institutionnelles d’offres de stages: étude vice: Managing Internship Programs», State and comparative entre écoles de commerce et Local Government Review, Vol. 10, No. 3, p. 100-105. d’ingénieurs et universités», Communication Dailey S. L., 2016, «What Happens Before Full- au 2ème Col oque international du RESUP : Les Time Employment? Internships as a Mechanism inégalités dans l’enseignement supérieur et la of Anticipatory Socialization», Western Journal of recherchée, Université de Lausanne. Communication, Vol. 4 issue 3, p. 453-480. Gérard P., 2019, «L’État, l’Administration et l’École Denhardt R.-B., 2001, «The big questions of public Nationale d’Administration», Les Cahiers Portalis, administration education.», Public Administra- Vol. 6, p. 195-205. tion Review, Vol. 61, p. 526–534. Giret J.-F., & Issehnane S., 2012, «L’effet de la qual- Desforges C. et al., 2011, «La formation initiale des ité des stages sur l’insertion professionnelle des fonctionnaires de l’Etat dans les écoles du service diplômés de l’enseignement supérieur», Forma- public», Rapport IGA/CEGEFI de novembre 2011. tion emploi, vol. 117, No.1, p. 29-47. Dhume-Sonzogni F., 2014, «Entre l’école et l’entre- Hamilton D., Pajari R., 1997, «Effective Commu- prise: la discrimination en stage. Une sociologie nication among Stakeholders: A Key Component publique de l’ethnicisation des frontières sco- for Successful Internship Programs», Journal of 48 FRANCE Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol. ENM: Décret n°72-355 du 4 mai 1972 relatif à 3, Issue 2, p. 203-215. l’Ecole nationale de la magistrature (ENM) L’Horty Y., 2016, «Rapport au Premier ministre sur Réglementation générale des stages: Loi n° 2014-les discriminations dans l’accès à l’emploi public». 788 du 10 juil et 2014 tendant au développement, McCaffery J., 1979, «Perceptions of Satisfaction à l’encadrement des stages et à l’amélioration du -Dissatisfaction in the Internship Experience», statut des stagiaires Public Administration Review, Vol. 39, Issue 3, p. 241-244. Webography Moyson S., Raaphorst N., Groeneveld S., Van de INET: Wal e S., 2017, «Organizational socialization in https://inet.cnfpt.fr/linet/presentation-linet/pro- public administration research: A systematic pos-linet review and directions for future research», Ameri- Consulted 01/19/2021 can Review of Public Administration, Vol. 48, https://inet.cnfpt.fr/formation-initiale/scolar- Issue 6, p. 610-627. ite-linet/une-formation-professionnalisante Racine P., 1946, «Les stages à l’Ecole nationale Consulted 01/19/2021 d’administration», Revue de l’Ecole nationale https://inet.cnfpt.fr/formation-initiale/proposer- d’administration, n° 1, p. 56-76. un-stage-un-emploi/proposer-un-stage Consulted 01/19/2021 Legal references ENA IRA: Décret n°2019-86 du 8 février 2019 relatif aux instituts régionaux administratifs - article 50 https://www.ena.fr/Formation/Formation-Fonc- tion-Publique/Formation-initiale/Stages ENA: Ordonnance n°45-2283 du 9 octobre 1945 Consulted 01/19/2021 relative à la formation, au recrutement et au sta- tut de certaines catégories de fonctionnaires, et IRA: instituant une direction de la fonction publique https://www.ira-lil e.gouv.fr/formation-initiale/ et un conseil permanent de l’administration ci- deroulement-de-la-formation/ vile. Décret n°2002-49 du 10 janvier 2002 relatif EHESP aux missions, à l’administration et au régime financier de l’Ecole nationale d’administration ; https://www.ehesp.fr/wp-content/up- Décret n°2015-1449 du 9 novembre 2015 relatif loads/2018/11/Brochure-stages-internation- aux conditions d’accès et aux formations à l’Ecole aux-2017_FR_web_Version-Finale.pdf nationale d’administration. Consulted 01/11/2021 INET: Décret n°88-237 du 14 mars 1988 relatif à https://www.ehesp.fr/en/programs/civil-ser- l’organisation de la formation initiale des élèves vice-executive-degree-programs/health-care-in- administrateurs territoriaux. stitution-management-program/Stage Consulted 01/11/2021 EHESP: Décret n°2005-921 du 2 août 2005, portant statut particulier des grades et emplois ENSP des personnels de direction des établissements http://www.ensp.interieur.gouv.fr/L-Ecole mentionnés à l’article 2 (1° et 2°) de la loi n°86-33 Consulted 01/11/2021 du 9 janvier 1986 portant dispositions statutaires relatives à la fonction publique hospitalière. IRA: ENSP: Arrêté du 11 juin 2020 portant organisa- https://www.ira-lyon.gouv.fr/fr/fi/Pages/les-stag- tion des périodes de formation initiale des élèves es/Presentation-des-stages.aspx commissaires et commissaires stagiaires à l’Ecole Consulted 01/15/2021 nationale supérieure de la police 49 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE Annexes Annex 1: Summary table TOPIC SUB-TOPIC COUNTRY: France al Permissibility yes Practicing yes ener Scheme(s): 2 Internship for civil servants (pre -service training) G Internships for students during higher education Statut général des fonctionnaires (1983) Regulations on recruitment, maximum (Trainees have the same rights and duration, remuneration. Type obligations as civil servants.) (Internship agreement shall not be concluded to carry out a regular task.) e basis Loi n° 83-634 (July 14th, 1983) tiv • state administration: Decree n°94-874 Loi n°2014-788 (July 10th, 2014) (October 7th, 1994) ormaN • local authorities: Decree n°92-1194 (December 19th, 1992) CSL reference • hospital civil service: Decree n°97-487 (May 12th, 1997) Decentralized practice: internships Centralized practice: depend on the student’s own initiative. tions Organized as one system / Internships are organized by the There is no centralized body in charge of decentralized “Direction des études et des stages” organizing internships for students in public of the school or institute of public administrative bodies. Internship agreement rganiza practice. O administration. is concluded on a trilateral basis (student - university - public administrative body). • Professionalization • To discover public administration Objective • to “contextualize” theoretical knowledge (students in high school or university) • socialization • To prepare for competitive exams • Internal regulations of the university / job Legal basis Internal regulations of the school or centre institute of public administration • The Social security code guarantees a trainee’s minimum wage ent • Interns: civil servants enrolled in • Interns: students (in high school, public administration programs bachelor or master’s degree)other case: Cont Participants • Receiving institutions: ministries, local unemployed workers, out-of-school authorities, embassies, international or young people (under 26 years old) European institutions, hospitals • Receiving institutions: any public body and administration Schools and institutes of public • Universities coordinator administration, especially “direction des • job centres (case of professional stages”. rehabilitation) requirements Civil servants must have passed the Requirements can vary depending on the competitive entrance examination. institution’s needs. 50 FRANCE selection The placement is decided by “Direction des études et des stages” Selection is made by the public institution. Special rights • Internships are mandatory and a core / advantages part of a civil servant’s training The knowledge acquired during an when later • The mark obtained as part of the internship in a public administration body applying for internship assessment plays an may help an applicant to succeed in the civil service important role in the final ranking, competitive examinations to be a civil positions. which determines the kind of position servant. to which the trainee might aspire. Support: What other support, for example Before being placed in hosting training, do institutions, some public administration participants schools offer a special preparatory of internships program to the trainees. receive? ent The trainee is under supervision by a Public administration schools appoint supervisor (maître de stage) (organization) Cont Mentors mentors in hosting institutions to and an internship coordinator ( coordinateur supervise trainees’ work. de stage) at the university or at the job centre. Payment of mentors No Mandatory The trainee’s performance during the training/ internship is assessed based on a report Exams depend on the high school/ exams and/or oral or written examination by university / job centre in charge. a jury. Whenever the duration exceeds 2 Remuneration Trainees are paid as “probationary civil servants” throughout training. consecutive months (a minimum of 15% of the hourly legal rate) The number and kind of internships Mobility trainees have to carry out depends on the public administration school or institute and may vary. Annex 2: Taxonomies of stakes for the different stakeholders in internship programs (according to Hamilton and Pajari, 1997). 1. Students • Satisfy a degree requirement. • Acquire practical, work-related skills. • Make a smooth transition from an academic environment to a work environment. • Link course work to practice. • Encourage portfolio development/enhance resume. • Provide greater potential for employment/interviews. • Develop networking skills and valuable employment contacts. • Earn an internship stipend. • Gain access to professional role models. • Design a suitable match between intern interests and work assignments at the placement site. • Strive for an emotionally and intellectually safe internship environment (i.e., free from excessive stress, sexual harassment, etc.). • Mandate minimal 51 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE non-professional work assignments (i.e., answering phones, filing, copying). • Develop a clearer understanding of the role and culture of the profession/institution. • Clarify direction for future career/ educational trajectory 2. Faculty Coordinator • Ensure that the internship includes an academic component that is commensurate with educational, departmental, and university standards and goals/ objectives. • Prepare an adequate supply of qualified interns to meet the demands of agencies, organizations, and institutions in the region. • Develop faculty assistance for supervising and advising interns. • Mandate course load reductions/release time for internship visits and supervision. • Promote university recognition of internship supervision as a scholarly activity. • Obtain financial support for travel-related expenses. • Market the internship program to various agencies, organizations, and institutions in the region to make them aware of the university’s internship program. 3. Academic Institution • Define standards of eligibility (e.g., grade point average, number of credits completed). • Establish standards for evaluating student performance • Establish standards for evaluating the quality of hosting institutions. • Successfully compete with other colleges/universities for quality hosting institutions. • Provide adequate resources (e.g., time allocation for supervision, travel funding). • Enhance reputation and status of the academic institution through high-quality interns. • Develop and provide pre-professional academic preparation of student interns. • Formalize working relationships with hosting institutions (e.g., issues of legal liability, contracts). • Provide adequate faculty support to effectively monitor and supervise interns - Establish working relationships with hosting institutions that facilitate collaborative efforts. • Facilitate placement of students into professional positions upon graduation through career services centres, job fairs, and computer-based job banks. 4. Hosting Institution • Use low-cost, educated supplemental staff. • Develop new ideas and concepts provided from the academic environment. • Identify prospective employees. • Ensure public relations with the college or university. 5. Potential Employers • Have access to a pool of professionally trained graduates with successful internship work experience from which to recruit new employees. • Enhance understanding of worksite culture from hands-on experience (i.e., interpersonal communication, policies, and ethics). 6. Professional and Accrediting Associations • Provide pre-professional quality control (internship program administration, supervision, selection criteria, evaluation standards, resources, etc.). • Monitor compliance with credential or certification requirements. • Develop a marketable/employable professional graduate. • Enhance esteem of the profession. 52 NORTH MACEDONIA Natalija SHIKOVA Faculty of Law, International Balkan University Skopje, North Macedonia n.shikova@ibu.edu.mk 1. Introduction The purpose of this analysis is to provide the EU and Ukrainian authorities with an overview of North Macedonia’s experience (as a candidate country for EU membership) in running internships in the civil service. In particular, the aim is to analyse how internship is legal y positioned and practiced within public administration. This research explores whether there is a systematic approach towards internships, whether internships are an integral part of the civil service, and how internships are managed and financed. Since there is confusion over the terminology, namely, over the actual meaning of internship and its constitutive elements, the analysis aims to clarify any terminological misperception by comparing internship with other related practices with which it is often exchanged. The analysis covers both past implementation and current manifestations, envisaging the new tendencies established in the recent internship regulation and seeks to elaborate – within a defined methodological frame –the envisaged challenges. The analysis is based on both the legislative framework and the information obtained concerning the implementation of internships in the country. Evidently, there is a legal and theoretical misunderstanding of the term internship in the Macedonian legislation, one that has been reflected in practice. The understanding of the term varies because of the language specifics and because of its being a concept not ful y known in the Macedonian legal tradition (at least in its substantial meaning).1 As a result of Macedonian aspirations for EU membership 1 EU related documents consider internships as means towards gaining useful experience; they are shorter and frequently undertaken by people looking for experience before job hunting and are not linked to recognized qualifications, see more at: https://ec.europa.eu/eures/public/ news-articles/-/asset_publisher/L2ZVYxNxK11W/content/traineeship-internship-apprentice- ship-which-one-is-for-you-?_101_INSTANCE_L2ZVYxNxK11W_backLabelKey=news.arti- cles.back.to.list&_101_INSTANCE_L2ZVYxNxK11W_showAssetFooter=true (accessed 6 January 2020); 53 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE and following the necessity to reform various societal spheres – including the public sector – some specific steps were undertaken towards establishing a more democratic and transparent public system. These steps aimed to connect the real needs of the labour market, including the public administration as an employer, with the qualifications gained in the process of formal education. In that sense, there are tendencies towards implementing internship not only in the private sector but also in the public sector. According to the recent Macedonian legislation, (…) “Internship is a work activity that includes a component of work through learning and acquiring practical work skil s, carried out over a limited period of time, aimed to gain practical and professional experience, improve employability, and support the transition towards regular employment.”2 In that respect: “An Intern is a person who carries out an internship with an employer for the purpose of acquiring practical knowledge and skil s that will help them improve their employability in the labour market”.3 For further clarification: “An intern may be any natural person citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia who meets the requirements determined by the law: not in employment; not older than 34 years, and having completed at least primary education.”4 Legal basis When it comes to internship in the public administration and internship as part of the civil service, the following amplification and clarification are necessary. The scope of the civil service The Macedonian legal framework recognizes both the broad and the narrow spheres of the public sector. The wider sphere includes all segments of society that provide public services, while the narrow sphere relates to administrative (civil and public) servants. The scope of the public sector is defined in the Law on Public Sector Employees , which classifies public employees into four major categories: 2 Law on Internship (Zakon za praktikanstvo), Official Gazette of the RNM 98/2019; 3 Ibid. article 2; 4 Ibid. article 3; 54 NORTH MACEDONIA ■ Administrative servants (civil and public servants) in central government bodies, local self-government entities, and public sector institutions performing administrative functions; ■ Special authorities (police, army, etc.); ■ Service providers (doctors, teachers, social workers, culture and art workers, providers of services in public enterprises, etc.); and ■ Technical staff (cleaners, drivers, etc.)5 The roles, duties, and responsibilities of administrative servants are regulated in more detail by the Law on Administrative Servants. 6 The main distinction lies in the nature of the work performed, with administrative servants performing professional, normative-legal, executive, financial, administrative-supervising activities, and deciding upon administrative matters in accordance with the Constitution and laws.7 Therefore, internship in the public administration will be analysed so as to cover the work of administrative servants in central and local government bodies and other state bodies established in accordance with the Constitution and laws. This includes those institutions that perform activities in the field of education, health, culture, labour, social protection, protection of children, and sports, as well as other activities of public interest determined by law, that are organised as agencies, funds, public institutions and public enterprises founded by the Republic of North Macedonia or by the municipalities, by the capital city of Skopje, or by the municipalities within the city of Skopje – representing the institutions of the public sector and civil service.8 The distinction between internship and other institutions under the Labour Law If internship is understood as a way of gaining skil s through practical work, a distinction needs to be made between the term internship and other terms that have a similar meaning and are part of the Macedonian legislation. Namely, internship is not a form recognized by the Macedonian Labour law, which stipulates the following forms of intermediate or transitional job positions until full employment:9 ■ Apprenticeship (in the Law referred to as apprentice internship) as a form of training or mentorship for gaining skil s by persons employed for the 5 Law on Public Sector Employees (Zakon za vrabotenite vo javniot sektor), Official Gazette of the RNM 27/2014; 199/2014; 27/2016 and 35/2018; 6 Law on Administrative Servants (Zakon za administrativni sluzbenici), Official Gazette of the RNM 27/2014; 199/2014; 48/2015; 154/2015; 5/2016; 142/2016; 11/2018; 275/2019; 14/2020 7 Ibid., Article 3; 8 Ibid.; 9 Labor Law (Zakon za rabotni odnosi), Official Gazette of the RNM 74/ 2015, Articles 56-59; 55 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE first time, necessary for the future independent performance of the job. At the end of the apprentice period, the apprentice undertakes the apprentice exam. In addition to Labour Law, apprenticeship is regulated by collective agreements. ■ Fellowship (in the Law referred to as volunteer internship), mandatory for certain professions to gain practical working experience and to obtain the necessary skil s before taking a professional test (applicable in the case of doctors; lawyers, pharmacists, etc.). ■ Probation work, as paid work performed in a testing period; upon successful completion, a full time employment contract is expected to be signed.10 Internship as part of the educational process Until recently, internship was a compulsory part of the educational curricula, and obligatory internship was stipulated in the previous Law on Higher Education. Unfortunately, the new Law on Higher Education (entered into force in May 2018) no longer requires internship, except in the field of the regulated professions in medicine. Thus, except for the above-mentioned professions, internship is no longer mandatory. However, the Law does not exclude or forbid internship. Previously, obligatory internship was regulated by the Rules on the ways of and conditions for organising practical teaching for students,11 which will need to undergo changes and alignment with the new Law on Higher Education in the future. At the moment, because of the legal vacuum, cases are solved as they were solved previously – by means of individual agreements between higher educational institutions and the various institutions where internship can be performed, including public sector institutions. 10 NB: This form was recognized by the previous Law on Civil Servants as lex specialis regulating probationary work in the civil service. According to this law, all new employees joining the public administration in entry-level posts (posts not requiring any previous work experience, for example, junior officers and junior associates) needed to undertake a one-year probation period and pass the relevant exam in order to obtain the status of a civil servant. During this one-year period, the employees were paid 80% of the work post salary. This is no longer the case under the current legislation: probationary work and the probation period are no longer considered a necessary condition for obtaining the status of a civil servant under the Laws related to the public sector in the Republic of North Macedonia. 11 The Rules on the ways of and conditions for organising practical teaching for students (Pravil-nik za nacinot I uslovite za organizranje na prakticna nastava za studentite), Official Gazette of the RNM no. 120/2010; 56 NORTH MACEDONIA Internship and volunteering Although there is a difference in respect of the aim of the performed activity,12 in practice, internship was regulated as if it were volunteering. Thus, the legal sphere in the country in the field of volunteering is well developed and broad, envisaging the concept of volunteering; methods for implementing voluntary work; register lists (managed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy), and a scheme for the remuneration of volunteers. Because of the lack of legal ground for the payment of interns, the legal provisions of the Law on Volunteering were applied, and interns were treated and paid as volunteers. On several occasions, public institutions (even the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia) would announce public calls for volunteers, stipulating conditions for these volunteers that were close to the requirements needed for an intern (a certain age, graduation position, a will to gain practical skills, etc.) and would sign contracts for volunteering. The potential for misuse of the concepts (which often happened in practice) was also envisaged in the legal framework, which even regulated the transformation of the status of volunteer into full-time employee, applicable even to those engaged in the institutions of the public sector.13 2. Organisation In the previous legal framework, internship was practiced in the public administration under the previous Law on Higher Education, where internship was a mandatory part of the educational curricula. The new Law on Higher Educa-tion14 does not recognise internship except for regulated professions. The Labour Law envisages forms other than internship (apprenticeship, fellowship, and probation work). Internship was/is performed as a decentralised practice based on the capacities and needs of the hosting/receiving institutions. Several informal schemes existed, but internship was largely regulated by individual agreements between higher educational institutions and the hosting/receiving institutions. The objectives of these decentralised schemes were to provide students with the opportunity to obtain practical skil s and work experience that will boost their competitiveness and help them in future employment. The re-12 Volunteering means voluntary delivery of personal services, knowledge, and skil s and/or performing other activities in favour of other persons, bodies, organisations and other institutions, without compensation. Volunteering is not fellowship (volunteer internship) according to the Labour Law; see Law on Volunteering, Official Gazette of the RM 85/07; 161/08, Article 3; 13 See the Law on Transformation into Full Employment (Zakon za transformacija vo redoven raboten odnos), Official Gazette of the RM 20/2015; 14 Law on High Education (Zakon za visoko obrazovanie), Official Gazette of the RNM 82/2018; 57 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE ceiving institutions were all institutions of the public and private sectors, and the interns were university students, usual y in the advanced phases of their studies (third- or fourth-year students, depending on the university educational curricula). Moreover, internship needed to be performed in institutions related to the student’s university studies. This did not apply in the case of regulated professions (in medicine, where the relevant ministry is responsible for organising practical work for the students, as well as in law, where practical work is necessary prior to passing the bar exam or obtaining another similar legal licence). The initiator of the process was the university administration, which approached the institutions and prepared agreements or memorandums of understanding for internships. In the case of private universities, the participating institutions were mainly private entities that regularly supported the work of the university. In most cases, the interns were selected according to the preferences of the host institution or its management. In situations where mutual agreements among the university administration and host institutions were not signed, interns were granted internship on a case-by-case basis, depending on their (personal or political) networks. As such, internship was highly dependent on the will of upper management officials to accept the interns. As a part of internship, in practice, the interns received only in-house mentorship. Arguably, some of the institutions in the private sector did provide some additional training for the interns or some other form of support. As regards remuneration of the interns, no legal basis for such existed. However, in practice, internships were considered volunteering, and the interns were considered volunteers – based on the rules on volunteering, they received a symbolic allowance to cover travel and meal costs. 3. Internship in central and local administrative bodies Owing to the unsolved legal questions related to internship and the need for alignment of the Macedonian legislation with the acquis communautaire and other EU related documents, such as the EU Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Development (part of EU 2020), the EU Council recommendation on a quality framework for traineeship15 and other related conclusions, the Republic of North Macedonia recently adopted a Law on Internship. The Law regulates the procedure, the ways of and the conditions for carrying out 15 Council of the European Union recommendation on a Quality Framework for Traineeships, 2014; 58 NORTH MACEDONIA internship, the rights and obligations of the intern and the employer at which the internship is carried out, as well as internship contracts.16 The Law distinguishes between internship and other activities, such as apprenticeship, fellowship, and probation work, all stipulated by the Labour Law. Internship means a limited period of time spent at practice by the person who is a practitioner (intern) at an employer. An intern is a natural person who carries out work practices at the employer in order to acquire practical knowledge and skil s that will help them improve their employability in the labour market. Anyone who is a citizen of the Republic of Macedonia17 and who fulfils the conditions determined by this Law – such as not being in an employment relationship, being no older than 34 years, and having at least primary education – can be an intern. The employer is a legal entity or a natural person, as well as another entity (state authority, local self-government unit, subsidiary of a foreign company, diplomatic and consular representative), which employs employees on the basis of employment contracts. To announce the need for interns, the employer posts a public announcement that contains information about the opportunities and conditions for internship on its web page as well as on the web page of the Employment Agency of the Republic of North Macedonia, or in the public media. In the state public bodies and in the bodies of the local self-government, the principle of equal representation of the members of the communities and of gender balanced participation applies when hiring interns. The Law further stipulates the maximum length of internship (6 months), sets the limitation of internship (a person can be an intern at the same employer only once), and relates the number of employees to the maximum number of possible interns (e.g., an enterprise/institution with 1-5 employees can only hire 1 intern, etc.). The law also provides for a monthly allowance for the intern, determined in net amount for a full-time engagement and depending on the duration of the internship period. Namely, the intern receives 42% to 74% of the minimum net salary for an internship up to three months, and the minimum net salary (determined in accordance with the Law) for an internship over three months, calculated from the fourth month onwards. If the internship, in accordance with the internship contract, is carried out for less than the full working time, the remu-16 Law on Internship (Zakon za praktikanstvo), Official Gazette of the RNM 98/2019; 17 It is unclear why foreigners with valid documentation and regulated residence cannot be interns. In the Law on Volunteering, such a possibility is envisaged; 59 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE neration for internship is calculated in proportion to the time spent on the internship. The Law stipulates the duty of the employer to pay the abovementioned allowance by the 15th of the following month.18 Just as in the past when there was no legislation for internship in place, currently in North Macedonia, internships are organised as a decentralised practice. Internship is regulated by individual internship agreements between the intern and the employer, which have a unified structure and regulate the rights and the duties of both parties.19 The contract needs to be concluded in written form and signed before the start of the internship. The employer needs to inform the Employment Agency of the Republic of North Macedonia about the internship at least one day before starting the internship and notify it of the end of internship within eight days from the termination of the internship contract. Once a month, the Employment Agency reports to the State Labour Inspectorate about employers who have notified it of internships.20 The rights arising from unemployment are not lost upon the signing of the internship agreement.21 Although the general conditions for internship are set in the Law (unemployment, age, and primary education), some institutions also have internal criteria for the selection of interns. Official y, interns do not have any special rights or advantages when applying for civil service positions at some later stage. Only volunteering is taken into account in the application process for the position of an administrative servant; having performed it within the civil sector is considered an additional advantage.22 Employers do not have a legal obligation to provide other support (for example training), except that stipulated in the contract for achieving the expected goals – however, the intern may not refuse to participate in training (if related to the assigned work tasks). As part of internship, in practice, interns receive only in-house mentorship. A mentor is a person employed by the employer responsible for organising the internship and monitoring the progress of the intern, who ensures that the learning goals of the internship are achieved. The employer is obliged by Law to provide a mentor that will continual y supervise the intern and will not allow the intern to perform work individual y.23 The mentors are assigned 18 NB: This is illogical, since the Law defines the employer as the second party in the internship, besides the intern. The second party in the internship should be the receiving institution or the host. Internship does not necessarily lead to employment; 19 Law on Internship (Zakon za praktikanstvo), Official Gazette of the RNM 98/2019, Article 8; 20 Law on Internship (Zakon za praktikanstvo), Official Gazette RNM 98/2019, article 7; 21 Chavkoska, B. (2020), Apprentices, Volunteers and Probational Work in the Labor Law in the Republic of North Macedonia (Приправници, волонтери и пробна работа во трудовото законодавство во Република Северна Македонија), Pravnik, July – August 2020, p. 9-14; 22 Ibid. 6, article 36; 23 Law on Internship (Zakon za praktikanstvo), Official Gazette RNM 98/2019 60 NORTH MACEDONIA based on internal procedures. Usual y, the more experienced employees are assigned as mentors. In the public sector, there are no incentives for mentorship. In this decentralised scheme, there are no mandatory training procedures or exams for interns (this does not apply to the regulated professions of medicine and law). The mobility element is not regulated. Nevertheless, the mobility element can be part of the practice and depends on the institution’s internal acts. 4. Conclusion The analysis explores the legal basis of and methods for implementing internship in the public service within the Macedonian legal context. The analysis clarifies the meaning of internship by comparing it to other related concepts, such as apprenticeship, probational work, volunteering, and fellowship. It presents the terminological differences and related legal framework. It can be concluded that in North Macedonia, internship is organised in a decentralised way. There is a recent Law on Internship that sets the legal provisions for regulating the conditions of internship; nevertheless, the process is not central y organised and takes place without meaningful support from the public institutions. As a result, many internships are carried out only provisional y. In order for the new law to be successful y implemented, there is a need to monitor the application and periodical y evaluate the success of the process. For these reasons, it is necessary to appoint a competent institution that, in addition to monitoring, will possibly organise the process on the central level. It is necessary to develop a potential register with information about the candidates, the companies that are willing to accept interns, the type of internship, etc. Other organisations, such as chambers, professional organisations, employers’ organisations, can also serve as mediators in the process.24 However, it is important to stress that internship is starting to gain importance in North Macedonia, especial y for the employability of young persons. Internships are now included in state employment strategies and programmes. One such document is the Joint Initiative between the Government of the Republic of Macedonia and the European Commission, which aims to further strengthen the scope and participation of young unemployed people through the design and implementation of services and active employment measures that, among other goals, envisage the development of internship programmes.25 The respective 24 Chavkoska, B. (2020), Apprentices, Volunteers and Probational Work in the Labor Law in the Republic of North Macedonia (Приправници, волонтери и пробна работа во трудовото законодавство во Република Северна Македонија), Pravnik, July – August 2020, p. 9-14; 25 The other measures are mediation services for employment, career counselling, orientation and motivation training, various training programmes for general and specialised skil s, entre-61 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE measures put in focus the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy as well as the Employment Agency of the Republic of North Macedonia as potential mediators in these processes.26 About the Author: Dr. Natalija Shikova is an Associated Professor of Public law at the Faculty of Law, International Balkan University, in Skopje, the Republic of North Macedonia. Her main research fields are public law and within public administration, good governance, democratization, and human rights. References Chavkoska, B. (2020), Apprentices, Volun- Law on Volunteering, Official Gazette of the teers and Probational Work in the Labour RNM 85/07; 161/08; 147/2015; 6/2019 Law in the Republic of North Macedonia Rules on the ways and conditions for organ- (Приправници, волонтери и пробна izing practical teaching for students (Pravil- работа во трудовото законодавство во nik za nacinot I uslovite za organizranje na Република Северна Македонија), Pravnik, prakticna nastava za studentite), Official Ga- July – August 2020, p. 9-14; zette of the RNM 120/2010. Law on Internship (Zakon za praktikanstvo), Official Gazette of the RNM 98/2019 Relevant web pages: Labour Law (Zakon za rabotni odnosi), Offi- https://ec.europa.eu/eures/public/news-ar- cial Gazette of the RNM 74/ 2015; ticles/-/asset_publisher/L2ZVYxNxK11W/ Law on Administrative Servants (Zakon za content/traineeship-internship-appren- administrativni sluzbenici), Official Gazette ticeship-which-one-is-for-you-?_101_IN- of the RNM 27/2014; 199/2014; 48/2015; STANCE_L2ZVYxNxK11W_backLa- 154/2015; 5/2016; 142/2016; 11/2018; belKey=news.articles.back.to.list&_101_ 275/2019; 14/2020; INSTANCE_L2ZVYxNxK11W_showAsset- Footer=true (accessed 6 January 2020); Law on Public Sector Employees (Zakon za vrabotenite vo javniot sektor), Official Employment Agency of the Republic of North Gazette of the RNM 27/2014; 199/2014; Macedonia https://av.gov.mk/ 27/2016 and 35/2018; Law on Transition into Full Employment (Zakon za transformacija vo redoven raboten odnos), Official Gazette of the RNM 20/2015; preneurship and self-employment for deficient skil s and occupations, subsidized employment, etc., see more in Employment Reform Programme and Social Policy 2020, Ministry for Labour and Social Policy, 2017, http://www.mtsp.gov.mk/content/word/esrp_dokumenti/ESRP%20 Makedonija%20-%20final%20(MKD).pdf 26 https://av.gov.mk/ 62 POLAND Dagmir DŁUGOSZ Chancellery of the Prime Minister Warsaw, Poland Kamil MROCZKA Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw Warsaw, Poland ks.mroczka@uw.edu.pl Łukasz ŚWIETLIKOWSKI* Chancellery of the Prime Minister Warsaw, Poland 1. INTRODUCTION As with society in general, the civil service corps in Poland is ageing. In 2017 young people under 30 accounted for 7.5% of the civil service, compared to 20.3% in 2009. The decline over this period thus amounted to 12.8 percentage points. More detailed data show that in 2017, people under 29 accounted for 6.5% of the civil service composition. In contrast, in the national economy, the participation of people under 29 equalled 18.8% ( The report of the Head of the Civil Service…, 2018, pp. 26-27). International y, according to OECD data, Poland ranks fourth as regards the representation of people aged 55 or over in the central government administration ( Government at a Glance 2017, 2017, pp. 94-95). The process of civil service ageing can thus be seen as alarming. It seems that this negative tendency is, to some degree, the effect of the austerity measures introduced in the civil service in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008. These measures included a recruitment freeze and personnel downsizing. As a consequence, on the one hand, young people could not join the ranks of the * The second version of the paper was adapted to a new structure by Kamil Mroczka and Łukasz Świetlikowski. 63 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE civil service. On the other hand, those employed on fixed-term contracts were the first to be dismissed. Concurrently, the civil service finds it increasingly difficult to attract new employees. This is proved, inter alia, by the fact that since 2013, the average number of candidates for non-senior positions has been constantly decreasing. It dropped from 36 candidates in 2013 to 11 in 2017. This tendency is partly justified by the economic boom taking place in Poland nowadays. The unemployment rate in December 2017 was 6.6% ( The report of the Head of the Civil Service…, 2018, p. 40). The civil service is apparently unable to compete with the private sector, mainly in terms of salary, career progression, and image. Against this background, the Head of the Civil Service decided to promote civil service careers more actively. In 2018, he planned to take part in six jobs fairs organised for university students and graduates (compared to three such engage-ments in 2017) ( The report of the Head of the Civil Service…, 2018, p. 17). At the same time, the government decided to increase civil service salaries, starting from 2019, after a ten-year freeze introduced in 2009. Another tool for the public administration to attract new, talented staff is the internship system, which is applied across the public administration. 2. LEGAL BASIS In the civil service in Poland, internships are legal y possible and implemented. However, it must be noted that the notion of “internship” describes several organisational and legal forms of this activity intended for students (pupils), students of the National School of Public Administration in Warsaw (KSAP), and the unemployed. Internships, broadly defined, include the following: ■ student internships, ■ graduate student internships, ■ administrative internships for students of the National School of Public ■ Administration (KSAP), ■ voluntary engagement, ■ internships for the unemployed. The concrete legal rules concern two forms of internship: graduate student internships and internships for the unemployed. Graduate student internship is regulated in detail by the provisions of the Act of 17 July 2009 on graduate student internships (Journal of Laws No. 127, item 1052). Internship for the unemployed is governed in detail by the provisions of the Act of 20 April 2004 on the 64 POLAND promotion of employment and labour market institutions (Journal of Laws of 2017 No. 1065, as amended) and the regulation of the Minister of Labour and Social Policy of 20 August 2009 on detailed conditions of internships for unemployed persons (Journal of Laws No. 142, item 1160)1. Far less detailed regulations apply to administrative internships at the KSAP – the Act of 14 June 1991 on the National School of Public Administration (2017 Journal of Laws, item 1411) and the regulation of the Prime Minister of 7 October 1999 on the School’s statute (2017 Journal of Laws, item 1507). 3. ORGANISATION In Poland the system of internship is currently decentralised, although an attempt was made in 2015 to approach this issue central y. Therefore, the analysis is based on selected case studies. The first one refers to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister (hereinafter: CoPM). This practice is compared with relevant experiences at the Ministry of Finance. A special case is the National School of Public Administration (KSAP), whose students participate in what are known as national administrative internships. Lastly, the paper also refers to the above-mentioned historical case of 2015. 4. INTERNSHIP IN CENTRAL AND LOCAL ADMINISTRATION BODIES 4.1 Scheme one: Chancellery of the Prime Minister At the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, the principles concerning internship (for students, graduate students, unemployed persons) and volunteering have been codified. The document is a part of the process management scheme adopted at the Chancellery and sets the relevant organisational and content-related framework. In line with this document, the internship system aims mainly at building a positive image of the office (employer branding) /Procedure no. B4.1.8, 2018/2. At the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, student internship may be pursued by any person who 1 For the purposes of this paper, however, the authors decided that internships for the unemployed (together with volunteering) do not meet the criteria for internal internship in the civil service. 2 The analysis of the case study in question is mainly based on this regulation. 65 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE ■ has completed at least the first year of first-cycle studies or the long-cycle Master’s studies, ■ has a referral (delegation letter) from the university as well as a student internship programme accepted by an authorised university body, ■ is covered by accident insurance for the period of the student internship in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. It needs to be underlined that selection takes place through an open and competitive recruitment process. The students have the opportunity to submit their applications for internship and later take part in an optional pre-selection of candidates. Student internship is based on a written agreement concluded between the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the university referring the student. The principles regarding the organisation of student internships apply to students of national higher education institutions. Applications from foreign university students and the universities and branches established by these entities are considered individual y. Internships are not paid. Graph 1. N umber of student internships at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance 70 63 60 49 50 40 40 32 32 29 30 20 10 0 2016 2017 2018 Ministry of Finance Chancellery of the Prime Minister Source: Authors’ own work based on data provided by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance. Data from the Chancellery as of 12.12.2018. 66 POLAND Table 1. Comparison of selected aspects of student internship programmes at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance Chancellery of Office Aspect Ministry of Finance the Prime Minister Deadline for submitting Min. 30 days in advance Min. 3 weeks in advance the application Application form Delegation Application form Student Basic documents required letter (referral) from the uni- status confirmation Acci- versity Accident insurance CV dent insurance Unit formally managing Director’s General Bureau Director’s General Bureau the internships (HR) (HR) Financial aspect of the Non-paid Non-paid internship Students of the fourth or Students having completed fifth years of long-cycle Target group the first year of studies, irre- studies or graduate (Mas- spective of the type of study ter’s) students irrespective of the year Formal preference / prior- ity in recruitment to the Not applicable Not applicable civil service after com- pleting internship Source: Authors’ own work based on data provided by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance. The Chancellery of the Prime Minister offers graduate student internships as wel . These apply to adult persons who ■ have completed at least secondary school (gymnasium), ■ are under 30 on the starting day of the graduate internship, ■ are covered by accident insurance (NNW) for the period of the graduate internship. As follows from the above, even persons who have not yet started higher education may apply for a graduate internship. Those interested in the graduate internship at the CoPM are required to send their applications and CVs. The 67 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE main purpose of the graduate internship, regulated by the Act of 17 July 2009 on graduate internships, is to make it easier for graduates to gain experience and acquire practical skil s necessary to perform work-related tasks. The graduate internship is based on a written agreement concluded between the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the intern. The agreement specifies the rights and obligations of the parties and the scope and duration of the graduate internship. It also specifies the organisational unit of the CoPM in which the graduate internship will take place. The contract may be concluded for a maximum of three months. If other contracts are subsequently concluded between the CoPM and the intern, the total period for which they are concluded may not exceed three months. Each of the parties can freely terminate the contract with seven days’ notice. Each intern must be covered by accident insurance for the period of the graduate internship. In contrast to student internships, graduate internships are paid. The amount of the monthly cash benefit is determined individual y in the contract for graduate internship and cannot exceed twice (double) the amount of the minimum remuneration for work, defined on the basis of the Act of 10 October 2002 on the minimum remuneration for work (Journal of Laws of 2017, item 847). In 2018, this amount was PLN 2,100 (approx. EUR 488). The amount of the monthly cash benefit depends on the number of hours worked by the intern over a week. The funds obtained by the intern are subject to personal income tax. Graph 2. Number of graduate student internships at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister in 2014-2018 Source: Authors’ own work based on data provided by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance. Data from the Chancellery as of 12.12.2018. 68 POLAND Hence, the two forms of support for students and graduate students share the following characteristics: ■ the necessary documents should be sent at least 30 days before the expected start date of the student/graduate student internship. Their formal assessment is carried out by the HR unit, ■ the intern may indicate several preferred organisational units within the office. The decision whether to accept him or her is left to the head of the respective unit, ■ the performance of tasks within the student/graduate student internship may not exceed 40 hours per week, ■ a person starting a student/graduate student internship ■ reports to the HR unit of the CoPM in order to: sign a confidentiality statement, become familiar with the basic security rules and sign the relevant statement, submit the application for a periodic pass entitling them to enter and move around the premises of the CoPM, ■ completes health and safety training and basic training provided by the rules regarding the obligation to maintain legal y protected secrecy, and signs the relevant statement, ■ is obliged to comply with the information security policy at the CoPM. The intern is subordinate to the Head of the CoPM organisational unit where s/he is undergoing his/her internship. A mentor is assigned to each intern. In his/her work, the mentor is supported by the HR unit. The mentor arranges the workplace for the intern and coordinates the preparation of the relevant applications allowing access to resources (including telephone, computer, user rights in the ICT system). Mentors, in principle, do not receive any extra salary for performing their role. However, they can be rewarded by their superiors from, e.g., the award fund. For the period of the internship, the intern should be given the authorisation to process personal data administered by the CoPM (in line with the tasks performed) and other authorisations necessary to perform the tasks. The authorisation is granted in accordance with the rules adopted at the CoPM. The content of the internship depends, to a substantial degree, on the mentor and the possibilities of the office. In principle, the internship programme should be ambitious. Therefore, the intern may, for instance, join a training program provided for regular employees, complete online training, attend conferences, visit other units to become familiar with their tasks, take part in events organised by the office, etc. However, no obligatory, field-specific training (including in the form of a mobility scheme) is foreseen. 69 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE A person authorised to represent the CoPM issues a certificate for the intern stating the type of work performed and the skil s acquired. The certificate is issued on the basis of information about the scope of the tasks and responsibilities performed, as received from the mentor in electronic form. At the request of the intern, the mentor may also deliver an opinion on the internship. After completing the internship, the intern completes an evaluation questionnaire. The evaluation surveys for 2017 and 2018 regarding internships at the CoPM allow an assessment of the satisfaction level of their participants. The surveys also make it possible to determine the most important expectations from this form of professional development. Importantly, such evaluation takes place after the completion of the internship, that is, at the moment of the accomplishment of the objectives foreseen in the internship programme. The questionnaires include closed questions on a scale from 1 (the lowest grade) to 5 (the highest grade) and the possibility of a descriptive extension (justifica-tion) of the answer. Student and graduate student internships were assessed by 84 interns. The interns appreciated the opportunity to work in most of the CoPM organisational units responsible for supporting the Prime Minister: analytics, government service provision, public communication, and civil service. In quan-titative terms, 95% of the answers to nine closed questions assessed internship with a grade of 5 or 4 (definitely positive or rather positive). First of al , the participants positively evaluated the basic organisational issues, which proves the efficiency and commitment of the office concerning internship as such. This referred mainly to the scheduled implementation of the assumed goals of the internship, technical arrangement of the workplace (office equipment, housing conditions, etc.), and support of the internship mentor. In addition to organisational issues, the general atmosphere of the internship was assessed. In the vast majority of cases, it was considered definitely positive or rather positive, which correlated with the assessment of the mentor’s involvement and his/her substantive support. Mentors were considered the “guides” of the interns, both through the subject of the internship and within the office itself. The most frequently emphasised benefits of internship related to ■ deepening knowledge and developing skil s in the area of work in the public administration organisational unit, ■ understanding the functioning of the government centre, i.e. the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, ■ acquiring work experience. The meeting of expectations of the interns in this field was assessed as definitely positive or rather positive in over 90% of cases. 70 POLAND Final y, in the questionnaires, interns indicated that internship at the CoPM had definitely or rather definitely increased their chances on the labour market and their employment opportunities. However, in one case a person complained that later in the process of recruitment to the civil service, the interns were not placed at an advantage compared to other candidates. The CoPM also accepts – as interns – students from the National School of Public Administration (KSAP). This is a governmental school under the supervision of the Prime Minister. The role model for the KSAP is the French ENA (École Nationale d’Administration). The main aim of the KSAP is to prepare officials for high-ranking posts within the public administration in Poland. This aim is being accomplished, inter alia, through full-time training of university graduates (Mroczka. K., Itrich-Drabarek J., Świetlikowski Ł. 2012, Civil Service in Poland). The training lasts 19 months and is highly practical. It includes two national administrative internships in the public administration at the central level. Each of these lasts approximately 6 weeks. Students indicate their preferences as regards the selection of offices. The School tries to take into consideration their choices when organising placements (KSAP, https://ksap.gov.pl/ksap/en). As data show, students prefer the most prestigious offices. Between 2013 and 2015, the most attractive ones included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (44 students), the Ministry of Economy (25), and the Ministry of Finance (15) ( Raport KSAP 2013-2015, 2016, p. 24)3. During the internship, students should be regarded as regular employees, execut-ing the same tasks, if possible (KSAP, https://ksap.gov.pl/ksap/en). Similarly to other interns, they are also assisted by mentors who evaluate their performance. The KSAP students receive a scholarship for the duration of their full-time training; hence, they are not paid extra for the internship in the national administration. 4.2 Scheme two: a central approach to internship in Poland’s government administration (2015-2016) The national-wide student internship programme in government administration was adopted by the government in 2015, following a statement made by Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz. The Prime Minister promised to make it easier for students to gain practical, professional experience in administration. The reference point was a research study indicating a discrepancy between the actual qualification of university graduates and their competences vs. the expectations of employers. In addition, the Prime Minister decided that some unification in this regard would result in raising the quality of internships and contribute to a better image of government administration (Chancellery of the Prime Minister, 2018a, www.dsc.kprm.gov.pl). The programme also had (2015 was an election year) a 3 The total number of students who took part in internships in this period was 173. 71 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE political goal: it was intended to show that the government of the Civic Platform and the Polish People’s Party were responsive to the problems of this social group. As a result of the Prime Minister’s statement, the government adopted on 3 March 2015 the “Recommendations on student internships in government administration offices and organizational units subordinate to or supervised in 2015” (Chancellery of the Prime Minister, 2018b, www.dsc.kprm.gov.pl). The document adopted by the resolution of the government was aimed at the design and organisation – within offices and units subordinate to the government – of high quality internships for students. The recommendations set out, inter alia, government units that organize student internships, the responsibilities of these units, and the guidelines for ensuring the quality of practices. The units were required to prepare approximately 16,600 internship placements (in over 1500 government administration offices and units). Certain organizational responsibilities were also imposed on the Head of the Civil Service, the Minister of Labour and Social Policy, and the Minister of Science and Higher Education (coordination, information, preparation of IT tools). The universities’ responsibilities resulted from the Law on Higher Education. The obligation for students to complete internships also resulted from this Law. The internships were organized on the basis of a programme that took into account the National Qualifications Framework for Higher Education. Another reference point was the Quality framework for the conduct of student internships in government administration, which was included in the government document as an annex. The implementation of internships was based on the internship programme resulting from the education programme in a given field of study. The internships were performed based on the agreement between the university and the government unit. During the internships, students could acquire the skil s and learn the attitudes expected by employers: planning and performing work, communication, cooperation and team work, focus on self-development, analytical skil s and office equipment handling. However, no central, obligatory training was defined (the same applied to the mobility component). In these respects, the government used a decentralized approach. As regards the pay, the students did not receive remuneration for participation in the practices covered by this programme because these internships were obligatory. The Head of Civil Service published standard, model documents, including a university-office/unit agreement, a certificate of internship, and internship ap-praisal forms for both students and universities (Chancellery of the Prime Minister, 2018c, www.dsc.kprm.gov.pl). A manual for students and universities was also prepared, offering assistance in finding job offers on the oferty.praca.gov.pl website. Students using the search engine could choose offers of internship that 72 POLAND were of interest according to criteria such as field of activity, type of office, etc. Each intern in the unit had a mentor. The mentor did not receive extra pay for mentoring. Students were referred by universities. They had the opportunity to learn about the offer of internship by visiting oferty.praca.gov.pl (Central Job Offer Database) or consulting the list of offices and units participating in the programme on the websites of the offices and the CoPM. By referring students to practice, the university also provided for their insurance. After completing the internship, students received a written “Certificate of Internship” confirming the acquisition of skil s and competences resulting from the internship programme. The university assessed the course of the students’ internships in the given office. The offices and other units could obtain individual opinions from students about the course of the internship. The effects of the programme were ambiguous. The government offered over 17,000 places, for which 11,700 students applied. The assumed indicator of the programme execution – the average number of office employees per one offered place for an intern (20) – eventual y equalled 23 (Chancellery of the Prime Minister, 2018d, www.dsc.kprm.gov.pl). Hence, formal y, the objective was not accomplished. At the same time, the prepared standards, the internship database and information materials were positively assessed. There were several reasons that effectiveness was lower than expected. These included, inter alia, a late launch of the programme, an overly brief information campaign, little interest showed by universities, a lack of interest of students in the specific offers from some offices, the non-paid nature of internships compared to the offer of paid internships in the private sector. In this context, it needs to be mentioned that no priority was given to interns in later recruitment to the civil service. The positive effects of the programme, on the other hand, included ■ standardization in the process of internship organization, ■ publication of offers in one place, ■ introduction of a consistent internship quality framework, ■ encouragement for offices to effectively cooperate with the universities. The central programme was not continued. In 2016, the new government adopted a report on the implementation of the programme. The government recommended that offices make use of experience gained in 2015. However, it was decided not to continue the programme at the nation-wide level. 73 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE 5. CONCLUSION Based on the case studies presented above, two main objectives of internships can be identified. First, this system helps young people acquire new skil s needed in the labour market. Second, it builds a positive image of the civil service as an employer. The second objective seems to be a priority, since Poland’s civil service finds it increasingly difficult to attract and retain young, talented people. Against such a background, the issue of student internship programmes seems to be of growing importance. The case studies analysed in this paper lead to some other conclusions. Firstly, although the system of internship is decentralized, it is easy to find many similarities between the individual offices (Chancellery of the Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance). These include the type of documents required, the manner in which they are assessed, the appointment of a mentor, and the non-paid nature of internships. Secondly, the quality and content of internship depend heavily on the personal engagement of the mentor. Therefore, it seems that officials acting as mentors should be given the time and support to organize the internship in the best way. They should also be properly appreciated, financial y and non-financial y. The issue of remuneration also relates to the interns. In the private sector, interns (or the best interns) are remunerated. In the civil service, they are not paid. Nevertheless, judging from the evaluation forms analysed above, the interns are very satisfied with the internships offered by the CoPM. The vast majority of them regards this opportunity as a valuable experience, giving a “competitive advantage” when seeking a job in the public sector. About the Author: Dagmir Długosz currently holds a position of a general counsel or at Chancel ery of the Prime Minister at the State Structure Analysis Team of the Analysis Department. In the past, he held managerial, advisory and expert positions in the Polish governmental administration. He is a graduate of political science and National School of Public Administration. His areas of expertise include public management, social policy, lobbying, conflict resolution. Dr. MBA Kamil Mroczka is an Assistant Professor at University of Warsaw, Faculty of Political Science and International Studies. He currently works as Director General at the Polish Financial Supervision Authority. Main research fields are public administration, public management, decision making and crisis management. Full bibliography is available at: https://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/core/#/person/ view/5e709447878c28a0473b99e0/current 74 POLAND Dr. Łukasz Świetlikowski is a political scientist. He graduated from the University of Warsaw. Currently he holds a position of a counsel or at the Analysis Department at the Chancel ery of the Prime Minister. Main research fields are human resources management and public policy. REFERENCES The report of the Head of the Civil Service on Chancellery of the Prime Minister (2018a), the state of the civil service and the accomplish- https://dsc.kprm.gov.pl/aktualnosci/urzed- ment of its tasks in 2017. (2018) Chancellery nicy-lubia-studentow-stan-prac-nad-real- of the Prime Minister, Warsaw. izacja-zapowiedzi-z-expose-prezesa-rady Government at a Glance 2017. (2017) OECD (accessed December 2018). Publishing, Paris. Chancellery of the Prime Minister (2018b), Procedure no. B4.1.8 to process charter no. https://dsc.kprm.gov.pl/aktualnosci/ B4.1 (version no 3 as of 11.07.2018). wiecej-praktyk-studenckich-w-urzedach (ac- cessed December 2018). Mroczka. K., Itrich-Drabarek J., Świetlikowski Ł. (2012), Civil Service in Poland, Warsaw, Chancellery of the Prime Minister (2018c), available in English at KSAP website (http:// https://dsc.kprm.gov.pl/aktualnosci/ ksap.gov.pl/ksap/publikacje, accessed Decem- praktyki-studenckie-w-administracji-rza- ber 2018). dowej-w-2015-roku (accessed December 2018). The National School of Public Administra- tion, (https://ksap.gov.pl/ksap/en, accessed Chancellery of the Prime Minister (2018d), December 2018). https://dsc.kprm.gov.pl/aktualnosci/prakty- ki-studenckie-podsumowanie (accessed De- Raport KSAP 2013-2015. (2016). Krajowa cember 2018). Szkoła Administracji Publicznej, Warsaw. 75 SLOVENIA Štefka KORADE PURG Ministry of Public Administration Ljubljana, Slovenia stefka.korade-purg@gov.si Lea NAHTIGAL Ministry of Public Administration Ljubljana, Slovenia lea.nahtigal@gov.si 1. Introduction Young people throughout the world are struggling to enter the labour market and gain work experience. Internship is thus one of the options to make their labour market entry easier. In Slovenia, to obtain employment within the public administration, a candidate must have specific work experience, i.e., work experience in a work post requiring the same level of education. This is a formal legal condition that a candidate must meet in order to be included in the selection procedure. In this regard, work experience gained outside a formal employment relationship, for example experience in the form of student work, also qualifies. This means that a person’s first employment within the public administration need not necessarily be in the form of an internship. Those who do not have the relevant work experience can, of course, apply for an intern position. An internship is published, and the respective procedures are conducted as an open competition, but it can also be published as a public notice of vacancy. Internship is allowed and practiced within the Slovenian public administration. The technical report below describes its legal regulation in more detail. 77 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE 2. Legal basis Internship in public administration is regulated by the Public Employees Act (which applies to public employees of state authorities and local community administrations – municipalities) and by the Rules on the traineeship period and on the methods, course and programme of training of trainees (adopted by the Minister responsible for public administration). The Public Employees Act regulates the status of interns, the training programme for interns, the period of internship, and the entry into employment by interns. The duration of the period of internship and the method, course and programme regarding the training of interns in state administration authorities and local community administrations are determined by the minister responsible for administration, and in judicial authorities by the minister responsible for justice (Public Employees Act, 2002, Article 108). Issues concerning the internship system not regulated by this Act are subject to the provisions of the Employment Relationships Act (which regulates employment relationships in general, not just in the public sector). The Rules on the traineeship period and on the methods, course and programme of training for trainees (hereafter: the Rules) regulate the duration of the period of internship, the method, course and programme of training for interns in state administration authorities and local community administrations. The provisions of the Rules do not apply to members of the Slovenian Armed Forces (Rules on the traineeship period and on the methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Article 1). The intern is a person who has entered into employment for the first time and is undergoing training for work. This means that the intern does not have relevant work experience in accordance with the law and is entering an employment contract for the first time, appropriate to the level of his or her professional education, in order to be trained to perform work. An intern enters into a fixed-term employment relationship for the duration of the internship. Pursuant to the Rules, an intern is also a person who enters into an employment relationship and is trained to perform work, even if he or she has previously been employed and has not yet completed the internship or has not acquired sufficient relevant work experience to occupy a post appropriate to his or her education (Public Employees Act, 2002, Article 106, and Rules on traineeship period and on methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Article 2). 78 SLOVENIA 3. Organisation The Public Employees Act and the Rules determine that the internship is just an opportunity (not an obligation) provided by state authorities and municipalities. The head of each state authority or municipality can decide independently on the employment of interns. If he or she so decides, he/she determines the number of interns in the personnel plan over a period of two years (Public Employees Act, 2002, Article 42). The personnel plan of the authority is harmonised with the adopted budget of the authority. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia adopted a Joint Personnel Plan for State Administration Bodies (for ministries, constituent bodies, government services and for administrative units) where the permitted number of work posts as well as the number of permitted intern employments in 2020 and 2021 are defined. The total number of trainees in 2020 is 148, and the same number is set for 2021. With this mechanism, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia seeks to provide employment opportunities for interns within the state administration. There is no special scheme for internship in Slovenia. Each mentor and other persons monitoring an intern’s work are responsible for the intern’s training during the training period. The mentor, who is appointed by the head of the authority, prepares an individual internship programme for the intern assigned to him/her. The programme of internship consists of two parts: a general part and a special part. When the internship is completed, the mentor and the persons that monitored the intern’s work provide written opinions (Public Employees Act, 2002, Article 107, and Rules on traineeship period and on methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Article 8). 4. Internship in central and local administration bodies 4.1. Aim and objective As mentioned above, the programme consists of two parts: a general part and a special part. In addition, the intern may also, on the proposal of his or her mentor, participate in any training programme organised for public employees. The basis for determining the general part of the individual programme prepared by the mentor is the content determined in the first paragraph of Article 89 of the Public Employees Act and includes the following: constitutional organisation; the legal system, the system of executive and judicial power and the relationships 79 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE between them; local self-government; the public finance system; the organisation of the institutions of the European Union and its legal system; administrative procedures and administrative disputes, and the management of public administration authorities. For the general part of the programme, the intern shall be trained within the body where he or she performs the internship. The intern also acquires knowledge in the areas covered by the general part of the programme by studying regulations and literature with the help of a mentor. The intern, who was selected in an open competition and is trained to perform tasks for the post of officials, attends compulsory training (pursuant to Article 89 of the Public Employees Act) for appointment to a title (each public employee who has been appointed to a title participates in this training, to which he or she is sent by the head of the authority within one year of the conclusion of the employment contract). (Rules on traineeship period and on methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Article 9). The special part of the individual programme determines the internal organisational units in which the intern works, the training period for each unit and the persons responsible for monitoring the work of the intern (Rules on traineeship period and on methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Article 10). During this period, the intern acquires the knowledge, skil s and habits necessary for independent performance of the work for which he or she is being trained. The duration of an internship is 10 months for official posts for which an academic or professional higher education is required and 8 months for other official posts. The duration of internship for ancil ary posts for which an academic or professional higher education with specialisation or a master’s degree is required is 8 months; for ancil ary posts for which higher vocational education or upper secondary technical education or upper secondary general education is required, internship lasts 6 months, while for ancil ary posts for which secondary vocational education is required, it lasts only 4 months (Rules on traineeship period and on methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Articles 4 and 5). The Rules also provide an option for shortening the duration of the internship. The head of the unit may decide, on the mentor’s proposal, to shorten the internship by a maximum of one-third of the internship. This decision may be taken after half the prescribed internship period has passed and must be supported by solid argumentation from the mentor. The internship can even be extended, e.g., when an intern has been, justifiably, continuously absent for more than one month during the internship. The internship is extended accordingly for the period of absence (Rules on traineeship 80 SLOVENIA period and on methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Articles 6 and 7). The intern must perform the tasks in accordance with the internship programme and the instructions of the head (of the unit), the mentor, and any other person responsible for monitoring the intern’s work. Before the end of the internship, the intern must draw up an internship (work) report. The intern keeps evidence of the work performed, which forms the basis for drawing up the work report. For each of the specific tasks, he or she has to define the work problem, specify the methods selected and used and the techniques of work with an explanation of the selection, and record comments and suggestions about the organisation and the content of the work (Rules on traineeship period and on methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Article 16). An internship report should also cover key details about the experience that the intern has gained, such as a description of his or her position and responsibilities within the organisation and the skil s he or she learned and developed during the internship. 4.2 Participants There is no institution specifical y established to manage internship and interact with other authorities. Each head of a state authority or municipality independently decides on employing interns. The participants included in the internship process are the state administration authority, represented by the head of state authority or the head of local community administration, the mentor, the co-mentor and other persons who monitored the intern’s work, and, of course, the intern. Interns may be selected on the basis of an open competition or merely on the basis of a public notice of vacancy (without an open competition) placed by the Employment Service. In case of an open competition, the criteria for the selection of an intern should be laid down before the selection procedure starts. An intern enters into a fixed-term employment relationship for the duration of the internship. The intern must fulfil the conditions of education required for the post for which he or she is trained. This means that students who are still in the study process cannot be interns at the same time. First, they have to successful y complete their studies. The type of education (level and field) depends on the area of work in which the intern could enter into an employment relationship upon successful completion of internship. If this post is an official post (the other type of post in the public administration is the ancil ary post) in which work is performed under a given title, the intern must fulfil some additional mandatory conditions: ■ citizenship of the Republic of Slovenia, 81 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE ■ not having been previously convicted by a final decision for an intentional y committed criminal offence prosecuted ex officio and not having been sentenced to an unconditional sentence of imprisonment for a term of more than 6 months; ■ no final indictment has been filed against such person for an intentional y committed criminal offence prosecuted ex officio (Public Employees Act, 2002, Article 88). 4.3 Mentorship, support and special rights Each intern has a mentor appointed by the head of the authority. In order to facilitate the organisation of the intern’s work, the head may also appoint a co-mentor. The mentor must have an education level the same as or higher than that of the intern. It there is no staff member with an appropriate level of education in the organisation, the mentor may exceptional y have a lower level of education than the intern. The mentor’s tasks are as follows: ■ to prepare an individual training programme for the intern, ■ to inform the intern and the persons responsible for monitoring the work of the intern about the training programme and inform the intern of the regulations governing the internship, ■ to determine the type and extent of the individual intern’s tasks in cooperation with the persons responsible for monitoring the work of the intern, ■ to monitor the work of the intern and assess his or her work performance, ■ to evaluate the implementation of the intern’s programme at least once a month and decide on issues related to the implementation of the programme, ■ to have consultation with the intern (2 hours per week, if the intern has the fourth or fifth level of education, and 4 hours per week if the intern has the sixth or seventh level of education), ■ to prepare a proposal for a written assessment of the intern’s work and submit it to the commission, prepare a report on the training of the intern, which is part of the written assessment of the intern’s work (Rules on traineeship period and on methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Articles 14 and 15). The mentor is entitled to a mentor allowance. The mentor allowance is determined by the Public Sector Salary System Act (Article 26). The amount of the mentor allowance is further determined by the collective agreement for the public sector (Article 36) in the amount of 20% of the hourly rate for the basic salary. 82 SLOVENIA The mentor allowance is calculated only for the time when the public employee performs the work of the mentor. For example, the mentor of an intern with a university degree receives the allowance for 4 hours per week. In Slovenia, there is no compulsory professional examination upon the completion of an internship. At the end of the period of internship, the intern draws up a final paper. The commission, appointed by the head of the authority, prepares a written opinion on the final paper and adopts a written assessment of the intern’s work (Rules on traineeship period and on methods, course and programme of training for trainees, 2009, Article 13). Upon the successful completion of an internship, the intern may enter into an employment relationship of indefinite duration in the post of an official without an open competition, provided that he or she was selected in an open competition or that he or she is an intern – scholarship recipient selected in an open competition (Public Employees Act, 2002, Article 71). However, an intern who has successful y completed an internship with a state authority or municipality but did not enter into an employment relationship upon the successful completion of the internship, can apply to any other open competition published by an authority. In this case, he or she will be in the same position as all other candidates and will not have any advantage in the selection procedure. 4.4 Remuneration During the period of internship, the intern receives a salary. His or her salary is determined by the Public Sector Salary System Act (Article 9a). The basic salary of interns is determined according to the classification of the position or title in which interns may continue their work directly after the successful y completed internship, so that their basic salary for the period of the internship is six salary grades below the basic salary for such a position or title. An example: If an intern is trained to perform tasks for the official post with the title of “advisor” (29th salary grade for the lowest title “Advisor III”), he or she is entitled to a basic salary in the amount of the 23rd salary grade. The intern also receives reimbursement for expenses for meals during work and reimbursement of expenses for travel to and from work in the same amount and under the same conditions as regulated in the collective agreement for civil servants in state bodies and municipalities. An intern is also entitled to receive a wage compensation if there is an absence due to illness or for being on annual leave. The criteria for the intern’s annual leave are the same as specified for civil servants in state bodies and municipalities. This means that an intern receives a propor-83 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACROSS EUROPE tional part of the pay for annual leave, depending to the number of days of annual leave to which he or she is entitled. 4.5 Mobility In the special part of the individual training programme, the mentor also determines the internal organisational units of the authority in which the intern works, the training period for each unit, and the persons responsible for monitoring the work of the intern. One could say that mobility between the internal organisational units of the authority in which the intern is employed is normal y expected, while on the other hand, the legislation does not provide for mobility of the intern between distinct organisations. 5. Conclusion The Slovenian legislation on public administration defines internship as an option enabling (especial y) young people to be employed in the public administration without previous experience. A person who has entered into employment for the first time and is undergoing training for work may be taken on as an intern. An intern enters into a fixed-term employment relationship for the duration of the traineeship. Each intern has a mentor appointed by the head of the authority. Each mentor prepares an individual internship programme for the intern assigned to him or her. Upon successful completion of the internship, an intern may enter into an employment relationship of indefinite duration in the post of an official without an open competition, provided that he or she was selected in an open competition or that he or she is an intern – scholarship recipient selected in an open competition. About the Author: Štefka Korade Purg is a Head of the Division for the Organisation of the Public Sector and Employment System at Ministry of Public Administration, Slovenia. Full bibliography is available at: https://bib.cobiss.net/bibliographies/si/webBiblio/ bib201_20210413_123411_a5788771.html Dr. Lea Nahtigal is an Undersecretary in the Division for the Organisation of the Public Sector and Employment System at Ministry of Public Administration, Slovenia. Full bibliography is available at: https://bib. cobiss.net/bibliographies/si/webBiblio/bib201_20210413_123311_ a168631395.html 84 SLOVENIA References Public Employees Act. (2002). Official Ga- Public Sector Salary System Act. (2002). Of- zette of the Republic of Slovenia, No. 63/07- ficial Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, No. Official Consolidated Text, 65/08, 69/08 108/09 – Official Consolidated Text, 13/10, – ZTFI-A, 69/08 – ZZavar-E, 40/12 – ZUJF, 59/10, 85/10, 107/10, 35/11 – ORZSPJS49a, 158/20 – ZIntPK-C in 203/20 – ZIUPOP- 27/12 – CC dec., 40/12 – ZUJF, 46/13, 25/14 – DVE. http://pisrs.si/Pis.web/pregledPred- ZFU, 50/14, 95/14 – ZUPPJS15, 82/15, 23/17 pisa?id=ZAKO3177 – ZDOdv, 67/17 and 84/18. http://www.pisrs. Rules on traineeship period and on methods, si/Pis.web/pregledPredpisa?id=ZAKO3328 course and programme of training for train- Collective agreement for public sector. (2008). ees. (2009). Official Gazette of the Republic of Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, Slovenia, No. 28/09. http://www.pisrs.si/Pis. No. 57/08, 23/09, 91/09, 89/10, 89/10, 40/12, web/pregledPredpisa?id=PRAV9616 46/13, 95/14, 91/15, 21/17, 46/17, 69/17 and Employment Relationships Act. (2013). Of- 80/18). http://www.pisrs.si/Pis.web/pregled- ficial Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, Predpisa?id=KOLP234 No. 21/13, 78/13 – corr. , 47/15 – ZZSDT, Joint Personnel Plan for State Administration 33/16 – PZ-F, 52/16, 15/17 – CC dec., 22/19 Bodies. (2020). https://www.gov.si/assets/ – ZPosS, 81/19 and 203/20 – ZIUPOPDVE. ministrstva/MJU/SUKV/SKN-in-ZKN/ http://www.pisrs.si/Pis.web/pregledPred- SKN-cistopis-za-leti-2020-in-2021-na- pisa?id=ZAKO5944 dan-20201209.docx 85 Document Outline Foreword Contents Croatia Czechia France North Macedonia Poland Slovenia