The summer that was not a holiday

1Every May, classroom noticeboards sprout the same flyers: “Gain experience. Look better on your JUPAS form. Coffee provided.” The internships on offer are rarely paid. Students are told this is normal, even generous — a foot in the door in a city where doors are expensive.

2Mei spent July in an office in Kwun Tong, formatting slides and collecting lunch boxes. She learnt how a printer jams and how to smile when a manager called her “the intern” instead of her name. On her last day she was given a certificate printed on thin paper. It did not mention the sixty unpaid hours.

3Supporters of unpaid placements argue that schools cannot teach everything. A clinic, a newsroom or a warehouse shows the speed of real work. Some students do leave with a referee who will later write a useful sentence. The problem is distribution. Students whose parents can cover MTR fares and a month without a part-time job can afford the “opportunity”. Others take evening shifts at the same time and arrive already tired.

4A fairer version is not complicated. If a placement lasts more than two weeks, pay at least the statutory minimum, or count the hours as a credited school module with a real mentor, not a photocopying circuit. “Experience” that only the comfortable can collect is not a ladder. It is a filter wearing a smile.