The college has
defended its action, which violates
national policies and infringes on
students' rights and interests, saying
it was forced to make the
students do backbreaking work because
it was difficult to arrange for
their internships to suit their
majors. Claiming that it is impossible
to follow the national policy on
internship, the factory said working
overtime was inevitable and common
today.
The seemingly reasonable
explanations are, in fact, mere
excuses for infringing on students'
rights and interests. Several questions
need to be answered before we
can understand why some colleges and
companies exploit students: Why did
the college arrange for the internship
of students in subjects not related
to their areas of interest? Why
didn't the school cancel the
internship program when students complained
about the backbreaking labor? And why
did the factory force students to
work overtime in violation of labor
laws?
There is enough reason
for the public to suspect that
the college "sold" the students as
cheap laborers to the company. The
fact that students' interests and
rights are being violated shows how
careless and negligent some colleges
have become about labor laws.
Internship, it seems, has indeed lost
its original purpose. The authorities
should enact a specific law on
internship organized by vocational colleges
to safeguard students' rights and
punish the colleges and companies that
mistreat interns.
Recently, some
interns of Hunan Railway Professional
Technology College told the media that
their college made them work, often
overtime, on assembly lines in a
factory in Guangdong province, which
was not part of their internship
program. What may have prompted the
college to force its students to
work on assembly lines is the
factory owners' promise to pay it 200
yuan per student per month in
exchange for "supplying cheap labor",
says an article on xinhuanet.com.
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