Education Ministry forgot to launch investigation into internship discrimination

An investigation the Cabinet promised into possible solutions against internship discrimination has been delayed by four months because the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science forgot to start it, NU.nl reports. The Ministry had to find out how many educational institutions place students at internships without applying.

The Ministry only discovered this “human error” after NU.nl asked about it. A spokesperson said that it ordered the investigation immediately after finding the error. The Ministry released an agenda against discrimination and racism on Wednesday. It didn’t mention placing interns without an interview.

The National Coordinator against Discrimination and Racism (NCDR), Rabin Baldewsingh, is disappointed. According to him, this seems to show that the Ministries don’t take discrimination and racism seriously. “This specific point, which is of great importance to us in strengthening the approach to discrimination in education, has now been delayed four months,” he said to the newspaper. “I find that really worrying. The Minister could have been more focused on that.”

In April, Bladewsingh concluded that students are more likely to face discrimination if they have to apply and interview for an internship. He, therefore, proposed allowing educational institutions to place students in internships without the interview.

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, asked Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf about the NCDR’s proposal. He replied in June that he had commissioned the Knowledge Center for Equal Opportunities, Diversity, and Inclusion to investigate how many educational institutions match students with internships without an interview. But four months later, that proved not to be true.

In June 2020, the previous Minister of Education, Ingrid van Engelshoven, already promised parliament to start an experiment with placing interns without an interview, also to fight discrimination. Dijkgraaf told NU.nl that Van Engelshoven’s promise was included in another study into ethnically diverse young people’s vulnerable position in the labor market. That study will run until mid-2023, and he hopes to present the results in the spring of 2024.