Abstract:
The benefits and detriments of Internship Programmes (IPs) had been
discussed over past decades by many scholars. Similarly identifying the
impact of IPs to the academic performance of the state university
undergraduates in Sri Lanka is very important currently. The overall objective
of the study is to identify whether there is an impact of IPs to the academic
performance of the state university undergraduates in Sri Lanka. The research
problem of this study: Whether there is an impact of IPs to the academic
performance of the state university undergraduates in Sri Lanka? The data
was collected from 20 undergraduates from 3 departments (cases). All three
cases have IPs as the part of the degree curriculum. Interviews are the main
research method used for data gathering. Both students and lecturers were
interviewed. In addition secondary data was collected through University
documents. There is an impact of IPs to the academic performance of
students. Benefits and detriments were identified as a result of students going
to work while being full time undergraduates. Students develop many skills
due to the IPs and those skills help them to perform well within the classroom.
It was clear that there is an impact of Internship Programmes to the academic
performance of the students.
