Participates’ Reflection in an Internship Program Barriers in Estonian Universities

Scientific articles reflect a lot about different forms of university and industry collaborations. Mostly they talk about knowledge transfer and innovation. It is also important to pay attention to the inhibiting factors of accepting interns and on the other side examine difficulties that students have in finding internship placement as well as understand internship coordinators' views on the issue. For students internship is a good opportunity to learn job related skills and not necessarily get involved with the company in the future. This article reviews internship program barriers from three perspectives: interns and university supervisors from five Estonian universities and site supervisors from various companies. This study investigates an intern as someone who is in training, who may be paid, but who is a temporary employee (Tovey, 2001); internship as a supplement or complement to academic instruction in environmental science. The data from site supervisors and interns was collected through a web-based questionnaire and university supervisors were interviewed. Survey was carried out by the faculty of economics and business administration in University of Tartu during 2012-2014. The sample consists of 418 interns and 194 institutions providing internship. In addition 24 internship coordinators were interviewed. The study gives and overview of the state if internship in Estonia. The data has been discussed in the context of the related literature. Increasing the quality of internship in enterprises in Estonia involves various stakeholders. The authors of the present study find that change can be achieved by coordinated cooperation between stakeholders. In course of cooperation the best cooperation models and communication meeting mutually agreed aims can be developed. Referenses Tovey, J. (2001). Building connections between industry and university: implementing an internship program at a regional university. Technical Communication Quarterly, 10(2), 225-239.