Abstract:

The compulsory internship for students within the study programmes at the Faculty of Administration of the University of Ljubljana offers many students their first contact with a real working environment. During the internship, the student identifies, analyses and solves a problem from a real working environment in the field of public administration. The aim of the study is to find out how employers evaluate the students during their internship. The opinions of 117 employers from the private and public sector were collected in the academic years 2020/21 and 2021/22 using a traditional questionnaire.

The questionnaire was divided into three thematic sections:
(i) assessment of the student's acquired theoretical knowledge;
(ii) assessment of the student's attributes; and
(iii) assessment of the student's work on a problem or challenge.

The first (i) and second (ii) sections contain four questions each, while the (iii) section contains two questions.

The results show that in section:
(i) of students' theoretical knowledge, knowledge of administrative law was rated highest and knowledge of finance was rated lowest. In section
(ii) on student characteristics, social responsibility and ethics were rated highest and personal characteristics lowest.
(iii) on the student's work on a problem or task, work on the problem itself was rated highest, while independence, curiosity and interest in the task were rated lower.

In all sections, the areas of social responsibility and ethics and the ability to follow and respect the mentor's instructions were rated highest. The lowest ratings were given to theoretical knowledge, particularly in the areas of human resources and finance.

The study suggests that training in the areas of finance and human resources needs to be improved. This includes strengthening this content in degree programmes and providing additional learning resources such as online courses, seminars and textbooks to give students a better understanding of these key areas. Improvements can also be made by introducing more project-based learning, where students are required to solve challenges and problems independently, and by introducing group research tasks to guide students to work in teams.

Based on the results, changes and extensions to the study programmes are possible in order to better adapt them to the practical requirements of the labour market. Implementing the recommendations could improve students' practical training, better prepare them for the real world of work and strengthen their theoretical and practical knowledge.

Keywords:

Practical training evaluation, employer, student performance, public administration.