The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) Internship Programme involves internships of three to twelve months for young citizens of Commonwealth countries. The interns typically work at COL’s headquarters located in Metro Vancouver, Canada or the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), New Delhi, India. A combination of both on-site and remote work may be possible. The internship takes place under the direction of senior professionals and affords interns the opportunity to gain relevant experience and contribute to several ongoing and new projects at COL.

The internship programme’s goal is to foster the next generation of knowledge workers in the international sphere. The programme also provides young people the opportunity to augment knowledge and gain valuable work experience in preparation for building fulfilling careers in international development.

Applicants (or their sponsoring entity) cover all costs associated with the internship. This includes flights, accommodation, subsistence, insurance, and any other expenditures necessary if the intern resides temporarily in Metro Vancouver. COL will not provide funding of any kind for the internship. The sponsoring or nominating organisation of the COL intern can be any ministry, academic institution, civil society organisation or entity in the Commonwealth with a proven track record of research, innovation, community service or thought leadership in education and/or skills development.

The objectives of the COL Internship Programme are specifically to:

• Provide experience in education and skills development with gender as a cross-cutting theme;
• Enable interns to build capacity in project design and implementation while they work in a multicultural environment to support a diverse group of stakeholders in the Commonwealth; and
• Provide exposure to current and emerging trends in open and distance learning, open educational resources and technology-enabled learning.

A potential intern should be:

• a citizen of a Commonwealth country;
• hold an undergraduate degree in any relevant discipline;
• be under 30 years of age at the time of application;
• be fluent in oral and written English;
• possess skills in effectively using office IT tools; and
• have a background in any of the following areas of international development, education, educational technology and/or related areas.

If the intern intends to engage in the internship at COL’s headquarters or CEMCA they should receive prior endorsement by the head of the sponsoring or nominating ministry, organisation, or institution with proof of financial support associated with the internship.

There is no set closing date and applications can be sent at any time.

More information and the application form are available at:  https://www.col.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/COL_Internship_Programme.pdf