Magister of Management of Gadjah Mada University (MM UGM) which managed a MSc Program on ASEAN Sustainability has invited ACCEPT II to workshop ‘Cooperation on Students’ Internship Norway – Indonesia’ on 14 September 2023. 

• The workshop has discussed the student interns experience in several companies or institutions including ACCEPT II and how the internship opportunities for the student in the companies or institution should be continued.  
• Under ACCEPT II, two students of the MSc Program on ASEAN Sustainability have joined ACCEPT II internship program who are Hein Htet (Batch 1) and Thant Thura (Batch 2). 

The half-day workshop on ‘Cooperation on Students’ internship Norway – Indonesia’ has been held on MM UGM Jakarta on 14 September. Representatives from Gadjah Mada University (UGM), University of Agder (UiA), Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Directorate of Valuation of Ministry of Finance of Indonesia (Kemenkeu), Directorate General of Conservation of Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Indonesia (KLHK), Indonesia Chamber of Commerce (KADIN), ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE), Jotun, Yara, TinFos, Tomra, and Aid Environment have been actively involved on the workshop.  

Prof Eduardus Tandelin from UGM explained that internship is made to provide and improve knowledge and grow leadership skills of the student. Internship is also aiming to combine theory and practice. Prof Stein Kristiansen who is the program director of MSc ASEAN Sustainability explained that the internship should be made possible since internship give opportunities for students to be involved in international dimensions, create interdisciplinary knowledge for sustainability, and deliver a practical approach.  

During the workshop, six students of the MSc Program shared their internship journey. In summary, the students agreed that the internship program give them benefits among others are learning project management, ability to design or develop a constructive thinking process, research needs from industrial perspective, and understanding international exposure. ACCEPT II has also continuously accepted and working with student internship among other are two students of MSc ASEAN Sustainability program who are Hein Htet and Thant Thura. Hein was the research intern of ACCEPT from Batch 1 (January – June 2023). He took a research focus on Carbon Pricing and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in ASEAN context. Thant who is currently an ACCEPT II intern for Batch 2 (July – December 2023) has taking research focus on Just Energy transition Partnership (JETP) in the context of ASEAN.  

Academicians, students, practitioners, and business leaders have shared their experiences on the process of internship program. The workshop discussed how to build a stronger and longer cooperation for students’ internship between the universities, ministries, and industries. From the student’s perspective, an internship should be undertaken for at least 3 months and a long-time internship of more than 6 months should be preferred. In addition, the internship should account for a proper proportion of credit / ECTS. A credit of ECTS ranges from 5 – 30 ECTS should be applied considering the duration of the internship. From the industry’s perspective sees that it is doable to have an intern period for 3 to 6 months. Industry may select interns who have research interest in line with their work program.  

The workshop’s discussion found that a continuation of students’ internship between university and industry should be made possible. All the stakeholders agreed that the combination of theory in class with internship in the field should improve the student experience in real work. The internship program should be made available for 3 – 6 months and 6 months longer is also possible upon agreement of the university and industries. To anticipate communication barriers (English abilities) between industry with foreign interns, a combination of local and foreign student interns in an industry can be made possible to avoid communication barriers. In ACCEPT II project, the continuation to accept the student interns is widely open since the ACCEPT II opens student internship every 6 months. ACCEPT II is very delightful to accept and work with the interns from any universities including MSc Program on ASEAN Sustainability.

Further details about ACCEPT II can be found at https://accept.aseanenergy.org/.  

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