Band 8 model answer

Unpaid internships have become a fixture of graduate recruitment in many industries, generating a debate that sits at the crossroads of labour rights, social mobility and practical education. Critics see them as a sophisticated form of exploitation; defenders argue they are a legitimate exchange of time for experience. The truth, characteristically, lies between these poles.

The exploitation argument is not without force. Asking a graduate to perform productive work without payment, writing copy, conducting research, assisting with client management, is to extract real economic value in exchange for credentials whose actual worth in a competitive labour market can be elusive. More troubling still is the equity dimension: the ability to work without wages is a privilege largely confined to those supported by wealthy parents, effectively closing creative, legal, media and policy careers to talented individuals from modest backgrounds. What presents itself as meritocracy is therefore, in practice, a mechanism that reproduces inherited advantage.

On the other hand, dismissing internships wholesale ignores the genuine learning that structured placements can provide. A student who spends three months inside a publishing house or an architectural practice acquires contextual knowledge, professional habits and networks that no university course replicates. For industries where practical exposure is itself a form of credential, some period of experience-for-opportunity exchange may be genuinely in the intern's long-term interest.

The distinction that matters, I would argue, is between short, intensive placements of a few weeks and open-ended arrangements lasting months, the latter crossing clearly into exploitation regardless of the learning rationale offered.

In conclusion, while the experience gained through internships can be genuinely valuable, prolonged unpaid work is indefensible. Regulation setting a maximum duration and requiring remuneration beyond that threshold would preserve the educational benefit while curbing the inequity.