PROPOSAL OF GUIDELINES TO IMPLEMENT AND EVALUATE INTERNSHIPS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

In recent years, Portuguese Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have made efforts to increase the employment rate of their graduates. A common strategy to achieve this goal is to offer study programs with internships. In addition, study programs with internships provide an opportunity for HEIs to establish or reinforce partnerships with companies in the surrounding business sector. In general, HEIs lack structures to support the evaluation, monitoring, and reflection about the internship processes or, when existing, that structures are, in most cases, more directed to the management of internship offers and the placement of students. This article presents the strategies followed by a Polytechnic School for the implementation of internships in a study program in the ICT area. It also presents the results of a survey conducted on a group of students and respective supervisors of the internship host entities. The main objective of the survey was to contribute to the evaluation of the implementation process of internships in the aforementioned study program. The results of the survey show that both students and host entities are satisfied with the internships, both in terms of structure and students preparation for the execution of the internship. These data are corroborated by the opinion of other important stakeholders.