Jayne Dowle: Foothold in world of work is worth the risk

For obvious reasons, foreign journalists are not allowed into this totalitarian state so Sweeney posed as a history professor accompanied by 10 students on a study trip. If the group had been caught out they would have faced arrest, interrogation, detention, and in a country which Sweeney describes as “extraordinarily scary, dark and evil”.

Claims are flying that the group members were exploited as cover for the BBC investigation, that the LSE knew nothing about the true nature of the trip and that the students didn’t understand the potential dangers.

It’s a long way from North Korea to an office on a business park just off the M62, but this story must be making any student wonder whether any kind of work experience really is worth the trouble.

To them, I would say a resounding yes. Any employer will tell you that young people are not worth employing unless they have already had some experience of work. Whether that work involves sorting out a filing cabinet for hours on end or hiding a camera at passport control in North Korea is not the point; it’s the “experience” which counts.

I should know. From typing up wedding reports for a local paper when I was 16, to supervising an endless stream of wannabe journalists as an editor, and now, as a university lecturer, helping my own students find placements, I understand the value of getting out there and finding out what the world is really like.

It develops self-confidence, fosters self-reliance, proves that an individual is committed to daily responsibilities and might even cause a life-altering change of heart; that ambition to be a vet held since the age of seven could be shattered with the first sight of blood.

In such a competitive jobs market, every bit of experience counts, but this drive to create the most impressive CV shows up startling inequalities. That’s why Nick Clegg launched the Business Compact, a partnership between the Government and around 100 big companies, to offer young people experience.

It is a step in the right direction, but in a way it misses the point. The really sought-after internships, the ones with fashion photographers or in the kitchens of top-name chefs, for example, are almost always reserved for those with a personal introduction. And crucially, most often, these don’t pay.

Like so much else in life, getting your first foot on the work ladder is not so much about what you know, as who you know. There has been a row in Westminster too, about the number of young people with already well-established political connections taken on automatically as researchers and assistants to MPs.

Even the Prime Minister, who knows a thing or two about the old boys’ network, has dipped his toe into this debate before beating a hasty retreat when he realised that his Bullingdon Club background was unlikely to help any debate on equal opportunities.

In the scramble for placements, it will always be those who shout the loudest, and usually with the plummiest voices, who will get heard first. And of course, it follows that this particular kind of young person is typically from the kind of family which can afford to support them whilst they work for free.

Before we even begin to think about all those interns being exploited for no pay, what though of the thousands of youngsters who have ambitions to work in an ultra-competitive field but absolutely no way of supporting themselves while they do so? Who come from families where there is no spare money, even to fund a couple of weeks’ expenses in a big city?

Mr Clegg stopped short of pressing for all internships to be paid. And although this sounds like he bottled it, you can see why he might have considered it unfeasible.

Unless the Government is prepared to devote enough public money to fund every internship and work placement going, or private companies are willing to foot the bill, legalised financial subsidy will never happen. I know this doesn’t sound fair, but it’s the way the world works. It shouldn’t put youngsters off though; it should put the onus on them, and their parents, to think about preparing for work experience as much as they worry about revision for exams. After all, the sooner young people realise that they should never expect something for nothing in adulthood, the better their chances of overcoming life’s obstacles.