Evaluation of Internship Practices in Vocational Colleges According to the Views of Academics (Kirklareli University Case)

Abstract

Within the scope of university-industry cooperation, efforts on the preservation of the updating the educational programs in vocational colleges, re-arrangement of the education programs by determining the requirements of the enterprises and transferring the new technologies of the enterprises to the vocational colleges continue Within this scope, different internship application methods are applied in different universities. The compulsory internship of the student is controlled by the academic staff who are assigned as an internship advisor. Therefore, the first hand feedbacks are gathered by the advisors. For this reason, advisors' views on the practice of compulsory internship practice are an important data that must be referred to accomplish the mission of vocational colleges. In this research, it is aimed to collect the remarks of advisors in vocational colleges affiliated to Kirklareli University with regard to compulsory internship practice and different internship practice methods. The research was carried out in the spring semester of 2017-2018 academic year with the participation of teaching staff of Vocational Colleges of Kirklareli University. A total of 89 teaching staff participated in the research on the basis of volunteerism. Participants' opinions on internship practices were collected through 6 open-ended questions. The research was carried out using the purposive sampling method in qualitative research design and the obtained data were evaluated with the help of content analysis. According to findings, current internship practice was found to be inefficient in terms of the duration of internship, problems caused by workplace, low number of establishments in the region and responsibilities of students. The recommendation of the advisors, to implement a more effective internship, is to improve university-industry cooperation, increase supervision and communication.