Edie writes:
St Patrick’s College advertises a 9-month Jobbridge internship for a Research Assistant in the Centre for Human Development, requiring applicants to have ‘a Third-Level qualification in the area of Human Development or cognate discipline’.
The Centre’s brief is to explore ‘well-being and human flourishing […] from a variety of perspectives underpinned by a holistic view of the human that includes emotional, intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic and civic dimensions’. Are they looking to explore the extent to which ‘well-being and flourishing’ are possible on welfare payment plus €50 a week?
Research Assistant in Human develepoment (JobBridge)
Meanwhile, in Waterford…
Via Pamela Ryan
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If I were a recent graduate working in this area I would snap the hand off anybody offering this opportunity. Graduates have done work like this in Universities for little or no money in the past.
I have no idea what ‘Human Development’ could possibly be, but the skill set/training is decent enough.
If people are above this kind of thing, fair enough, leave it to somebody more ambitious and with a smaller sense of entitlement.
The problem is it undermines those of us being paid for working in research (why hire someone at IUA’s research assistant rate of 20-30 grand when you can get someone equally qualified to work for 50 quid a week?) and makes the possibility of finding gainful employment even more unlikely for those of us at the slippery bottom rung of academia.
http://trinitynews.ie/jobbridge-interns-trinity/
You say that as if there’s no way of doing both? I’m sure you’ll have researched that viewpoint thoroughly.
I would imagine that having an intern pick up some of the administrative tasks would unleash the inevitably remarkable powers of the experienced researchers in the field of Human Development.
That’s all well and good in theory, but the reality is that people in this line of work are desperate and that’s been taken advantage of by schemes like JobBridge, so you end up having overqualified interns receiving pittance for work that previously would have been paid at the rate quoted above. Look at what happened in Trinity, 70 interns taken on, only 15 of whom received employment afterwards. Besides, the experienced researchers you talk about are likely on short-term contract (often only 6-12 months in duration) with limited prospect of future employment either.
It’s a sense of entitlement now to want to get paid is it? Cop on.
And the problem is not wholly an issue with just not being paid.
For me, it is the length of time, nine months, and some up to TWICE THAT with a max of 18 months permitted.
All the jobs I’ve seen could be done / or the skills learnt in a couple of months. As my employer has done twice! Two months is plenty. 18, 9 or 6 months is abuse no matter what way you look at it.
Remember, the scheme is not designed to benefit the employer, in fact, the employer is supposed to be ‘put out’ by the scheme in that they go out of their way to benefit the intern not the company – it’s in the rules!
Not that the rules are ever enforced or policed unless it gets reported in the news by the abused… thank Joan ‘head-so-far-up-my-own-ares-i-can-see-myself-in-the-mirror-through-my-nasal-passage’ Burton for that.
That’s not an internship, that’s abuse.
Here’s some more reasons why it should be stopped….
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/unpaid-internships-bad-for-students-bad-for-workers-bad-for-society/256958/
Yep. All of this.
Oh, the “employer” doesn’t even pay that extra €50 per week, that also comes from the state. And even though the intern is getting paid more now than they got n the dole, they no longer count as being unemployed for the purpose of official statistics. It’s all part of the insane shell game the current government have put together to convince people that things are getting better.
The employer also doesn’t have to pay employer’s PRSI for a year if they hire a jobbridger after they finish the internship.
Shepherd- Slemish Mountains
The intern will gain valuable experience in herding sheep across wild mountains while learning to be self-reliant and to fight off wolves.
The intern will learn to take pity on the natives and to return with a message of christian charity which will be twisted to manipulate the people it pretends to help.
nice
lols
focking flocksman seeks flocks. man.
Pigs. Herding pigs on Sliabh Mis – false advertising there.
IT’S NOT BLOODY JOBSBRIDGE!! Read the goddamn name – JobBridge ffs.
While we’re on this topic…. it’s not ‘EUROS’, it’s EURO!!
And certainly not…ahem… ‘yoyos’
External review of JobBridge to be carried out
http://m.rte.ie/news/2015/0818/722108-jobbridge-external-review/
Depends on who is defining what exactly “external” means. It certainly avoids the use of the words “independent of…”. Could be some nonsense Macleese style whitewash.
A trainee clinicaly psychologist gets paid 37k a year in the HSE. That’s a bloody trainee, never mind qualified. A clinical psychologist has an undergraduate and postgraduate degree. Jobbridge is supposed to be about training? Clinical psychologists have been training for seven years already. Proposing to pay them €238 a week is nothing short of an insult.