The Department of Science and Technology (DST) makes available funding to the Human Capacity Building Programme of the National Research Foundation (NRF) to administer an internship programme for unemployed graduates in the Science field.

The purpose is to offer an opportunity to acquire practical work experience through mentoring and exposure to a research environment for one year. ASSAf’s Scholarly Publishing Unit hosted two Information Science graduates as part of the 2011/2012 DST-NRF Internship Programme.  The internships ended on 31 March 2012.

The interns assisted the Scholarly Publishing Unit with the e-publication of journal issues on the SciELO SA database which has boosted the growth of the database. As from the beginning of April another intake of interns will start at ASSAf.

Comments from Mohau Moja on the value of the internship programme:

“Few university graduates are fortunate enough to get full-time employment on completion of their degrees. The transition from university to occupying a challenging job is not automatic. An internship is ideal for graduates to meet with the realities of their chosen career paths. Through the programme interns are presented with opportunities to:

• acquire real-time working experience;
• demonstrate strengths or capabilities through practice;
• attend short courses aimed at developing qualities necessary for employment;
• network with people from related work or study fields;
• increase their likelihood of employability.

The DST/NRF Capacity Development Programme is empowering our graduates.”