A demonstration was organized Thursday by the University of Montreal’s General Association of Psychoeducational Students (AGÉPEUM) to denounce the fact that their internships are still not being paid. It was denounced that the problem essentially affects programs that are very popular with women.
Posted at 8:30am
In order to receive the title of psychoeducation and to be able to work in their field, the students must voluntarily complete two seven-month internships totaling 920 hours in addition to their studies.
According to the association, this puts the students in a precarious situation, both financially and psychologically.
“What do psychoeducators, nurses, social workers, speech therapists and teachers have in common? These are professions where women are in the majority and where the internships are not paid,” denounces Marguerite Sabourin, who is in her first year of high school in psychoeducation.
Women working in helping relationships are overworked and underpaid. They have been demanding better terms for years, but the government is deaf. Why are women ignored when they have perfectly legitimate requests?
Marguerite Sabourin, Psychoeducation student
Naïmé Daoust-Zidane, who is in her second year of her Master’s degree, spoke about the Observatory for the Wellbeing and Mental Health of Students in Higher Education recently created by the Ministry of Higher Education. However, she says: “The same ministry denied us the Perspective scholarship for the Masters in Psychoeducation. We are allowed to do 560 compulsory hours on a voluntary basis at our own expense and are told that we are worried about our mental health? »
“At a time when no service is free and is becoming increasingly expensive, it is unthinkable for interns to provide a service without a salary to cover their basic needs,” adds Virginie Goyer, who is in the second year of her bachelor’s degree in psychoeducation.
Annabelle Berthiaume, professor in the Department of Psychoeducation at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières and author of Grève des Internships, Strike of Women: An Anthology of a Feminist Fight for A Student Salary, has extensively documented the problem of unpaid internships that In fact, she notes, she essentially punishes women.
In psychoeducation, nursing, social work, etc., students often do their internship in the public sector, while in engineering or law – fields that attract more men – internships often take place in the private sector.
However, in a phone interview, she said the Quebec government “offers financing and tax credits to encourage private companies to hire paid interns. It therefore reproduces gender inequalities by applying this double standard when recognizing internship achievements. »
Ms Berthiaume points out that students who do their internship in the public sector are therefore at best awarded a grant that only covers a small part of the hours actually worked. They are not protected for their health and safety at work, while private interns have real wages, protections through labor standards and levers to recognize their overtime, among other things.