National Education System’s Regime of High School Education Internships

On September 19, 2011 Decree No.1374/2011 was published in the Official Gazette which provides for an Internship Regime governing the National Education System’s High School education field.

Internships have been defined as the practices of students related to education and formation of the students, according to the specialization that they receive, under organization, control and supervision of the educational unit to which they belong as an indivisible part of the curricular proposal, during a specified time.”

The status of trainee will not place the students in a working relationship with the public or private institution or company in which they carry out the educational practice. The institutions where such practices will be developed are bound to ensure the trainees according to Decree No. 491/1997, regulating Law No. 24.557.

The regulation sets the maximum number of trainees that a company or institution may take on, considering as a parameter the number of registered workers in them.

The regulation states that the trainee must be sixteen years old and those under eighteen years old must be authorized by their parents or legal representatives. In addition, students aspiring to join the System, in order to protect their psycho-physical health, must present a medical certificate issued by official health authorities. The certificate will demonstrate that the interested student can execute the tasks required.

The Internships will be conducted only during the last two years of high school education. Such regulation also requires maintaining the condition of regular student. In the event that the company or the institution is notified of the loss of this condition, the internship will cease automatically.

The maximum duration of the Internships under analysis will be six months and they have a maximum weekly duration of twenty hours. The Internships will have a minimum length of one hundred hours. The working day may not exceed six hours and it must end at 6.00 PM.

The payment of the internship as monthly incentive allowance will be agreed by the collective entities as it has not been established by the regulation.

Companies and Institutions will be required to give the interns the benefits available to its regular staff such as transport, dining hall and recreation as well as other benefits agreed in the individual conventions with the trainees.

The Companies and Institutions may suspend or conclude the agreements, making the appropriate notification to the parts with an anticipation of not less than sixty consecutive days. They must complete the internships that are ongoing. Thus, they also will be able to rescind individual agreements, by explaining and informing the reasons of the measure to the other parties provided by the decree. In that case, the other parties will not be entitled to any claim. In particular, Companies will be allowed to terminate the individual agreement when the trainees do not comply with the labor, technical and security related directives issued and when they do not respect established schedules or disciplinary and privacy policy related to internal rules.

Finally, once the internship Program is completed, the companies and institutions have to extend to each trainee a certificate evidencing the period of their assistance, the functions in which he or she served and their activities.

The agreements must be adapted at the time of renewal to the standard provided by the new regulation in a period no longer than two years.