Never has a bill managed to harm all its actors at the same time: students, universities and companies.
A rule that Under the guise of progress, it only adds rigidity, bureaucracy and distrust.
It is presented as a way to guarantee rights to intern students. But what it will truly guarantee is that more and more companies carefully select what type of intern they want to hire.
An intern is not just another worker. He is a student who, by obligation, needs to do internships in order to obtain his university degree. And the companies, which dedicate time, resources and personnel to train them, are doing, whether we like it or not, a favor to the university and the student themselves.
But now the intention is to regulate this process almost as if it were an employment relationship, imposing absurd conditions and restrictionssuch as that the intern can only carry out tasks “directly linked” to his or her career.
In real life that doesn’t exist. Nobody does only what is on their university degree.
An intern with her tutor
We all, especially at the beginning, learn by doing everything: preparing presentations, reviewing reports, attending meetings, setting up rooms, filing documents or collaborating on minor projects.
Precisely, this transversal learning is what teaches how a company works and develops real skills: initiative, judgment, adaptability.
And here is the great error and the great hypocrisy of this law.
In each university class/promotion, we all know that there are different types of students: the brilliant ones, those who advance at an average pace and those who need more time because it costs them more, not always due to lack of effort, but due to maturity, ability, personal circumstances or simply due to a different pace of learning.
The brilliant ones don’t need any laws. Companies raffle them off even when they are in the early years of their careers, because they see talent and potential in them and want to make sure they can hire them later.
The intermediates, with more or less effort, end up finding their place.
But those who learn at a different pace, those who need more time, more support or more practical guidance, who are precisely the ones who must be supported and the Government claims to protect them… in reality They are the ones you are condemning to stay outside the system.
And the most unfair thing is that many of those students who do not stand out particularly at university are, on the other hand, those who shine when they enter a company. In a work environment they discover that they serve, that they have initiative, creativity, that they get involved, that they help others, that what they do is useful and that they understand the real dynamics of work.
“This Government, in its efforts to legislate everything, is killing learning, initiative and opportunity”
They are often bright young people, with a practical sense, generous and with an enormous capacity to integrate, support and learn from experience. Thanks to these internships in that company, many of them find their vocation, gain self-confidence and even improve their academic performance because they finally understand “what what they study is for.”
And it is precisely this group of young university students that this law is going to leave out.
Until now, these young people—who may not have been at the top of their class, but were eager to learn—were able to join a company, prove their worth, and train ahead of time.
Today, with this regulation, if approved, many companies will stop offering internships due to fear, paperwork or cost. And these students, the most vulnerable, will not only be left out of the labor market, but even out of the university, as they will not be able to complete their studies.
Those of us who are fifty or older today started without a network, without statutes, without manuals and without “protection”, without anyone wrapping us in bubble wrap. We did everything. We learned by working, observing, screwing up, getting up and trying again, making ourselves count for our effort and sacrifice, for our contributions. That made us more complete, more resistant, more employable.
Nobody had to protect us: He taught us reality, not the law.
This Government, in its efforts to legislate everything, is killing learning, initiative and opportunity.
And the cruelest thing is that the young people who will suffer the most are precisely those who say they want to protect.
Because the brilliant ones don’t need this law.
And those who need more time, more support and more opportunities, with this law they will not have any.
And here the great paradox arises: in this era in which there is constant talk about diversity, this Government approves a rule that ignores the different ways of learning, maturing and growing personally and professionally.
The Scholarship Statute does not protect young people: it infantilizes them and also segregates them.
The result will be the opposite of what was desired: fewer opportunities for those who need them most.
If we really want to help young people, let’s do it by facilitating their access to internships, to the “real world”, encouraging companies to integrate and train them and recognizing their efforts. Not punishing those who are still learning with bureaucracy or rigidity.
*** Mónica Vázquez is founder and managing partner of MV Executive Search.