Information for Students


WIE Requirements

Students are required to complete a minimum of 60 working hours. Each WIE job must involve at least 60 hours. If the hours are below 60, the job cannot be counted as WIE. Students CANNOT combine one internship with another to fulfill the 60-hour WIE requirement.


WIE Assignments


To pass your WIE (ENGL2007), you need to do the following assignments:
  1. Pre-Placement Training (organized by CAPS)
  2. Daily Journal
  3. Interim Reflections
  4. Final Report
  5. Appraisal Form

Please go to the Blackboard site for ENGL2007 for details.


Periods of WIE placement

WIE placement can be completed at any time during the second and third year of study, but no later than the Summer Term of Year Three.

Students can work part-time during the academic semester, and their work schedule will depend on their class timetable. Students can also work full-time from mid-May to late August, or during the semester break (late December to mid-January).


Remuneration and Statutory Minimum Wage Ordinance

Your WIE can be a paid or unpaid job.

Statutory Minimum Wage does not apply to “student interns” and “work experience students during a period of exempt student employment”. Department of English will provide a confirmation to certify BAESP students’ “student intern” status upon request. Each student can be exempted from Statutory Minimum Wage as a “student intern” ONCE ONLY for fulfillment of the minimum WIE requirement (i.e. the first WIE placement). For more details, please refer to http://www.labour.gov.hk/eng/news/mwo.htm.

The Department is not in the position to issue any confirmation in supporting non-WIE jobs that are remunerated lower than the statutory minimum wage rate.


Types of WIE Placements

Students can participate in one of the following types of placements:

  1. Overseas/Mainland WIE Programme organized by the Office of Careers and Placement Services (CAPS)

Please visit CAPS’s website https://www.polyu.edu.hk/caps/wie-home for programme information. Only placements endorsed by the Department of English can be counted as WIE.

  1. Individual Placements (Self-acquired Jobs)

Individual placements refer to self-acquired jobs that will allow students to apply their professional knowledge and/or to meaningfully develop their personal generic skills in the workplace environment.


Guidelines for Assessing Suitable WIE Placements

  1. Only study/curriculum-related internships will be endorsed by the Department for the fulfillment of graduation requirements, i.e. satisfying WIE hours.

  2. The WIE job should be relevant to the students' academic studies. It should enable students to apply their knowledge and skills acquired from their studies to the real working world and help students develop generic skills relevant to their future professional goals.

  3. The WIE job has to involve workplace tasks that are assigned by the employer, with supervision and assessment by more senior colleagues or co-workers. Exchange activities and study tours not involving supervision and assessment by an employer are not normally recognized as WIE. Similarly, jobs such as private tutoring and freelance translation work without supervision are not counted as WIE.

  4. Jobs that require mainly manual work (e.g. data entry) or without much need for professional communication skills or academic knowledge (e.g. stock-taking, modelling) are not normally recognized as WIE.

  5. The Department accepts voluntary English teaching activities in recognized NGOs as WIE placements provided that the conditions above have been met. However, community service teaching experiences that have been registered as credit-bearing courses at PolyU cannot be double-counted for WIE fulfillment. For details of service-learning subjects offered by the University, please refer to http://sl.polyu.edu.hk/ .

  6. For non-local students: Jobs that violate any of the conditions set out in the “No Objection Letter” (NOL) issued by the Immigration Department will not be approved.

Students should always seek the Department’s approval before taking up any internship. Students should recognize that it is their ultimate responsibility to fulfill WIE as required by the University. If students face difficulties in securing a placement, they should actively seek further assistance from the WIE Coordinator and WIE Officer in advance.



Application for converting your job into WIE

Students who wish to have their self-acquired jobs recognized by the Department as a WIE placement are required to submit their application materials at least 2 weeks before the placement begins.

Failure to obtain approval from the department prior to commencement of placement will result in your work not being counted toward WIE. Work completed prior to approval from the Department will not count towards WIE hours.

For overseas summer placement, students have to submit their application much earlier. The application period is usually during March and June. Details will be announced in February/March.



Application method

Students have to email the completed WIE Conversion Form together with a copy of employment contract and a job description from the job advertisement to the WIE officer.

If the company does not provide the intern with a contract, the intern has to request the employer to issue a letter certifying the job details.



WIE Subject registration

BAESP students DO NOT need to register for the WIE subject during the add/drop period.

Registration for the WIE subject (ENGL2007) and the official announcement of subject result will only be made by the General Office at the end of the following semester after students’ completion of placement.



Grading

ENGL2007 Work-Integrated Education contributes to 3 training credits. The WIE assessment is based on a system composed of three grades: Pass with Merits (M), Pass (P), and Failure (F). However, the subject does not contribute toward the GPA.



Subsidies for Students

Offshore WIE Sponsorship (OWS)

Non-final year students can apply for OWS to support their offshore WIE placements overseas or in Mainland China. Different levels of sponsorship will be granted based on the internship destination and duration, and students are expected to cover part of the expenses incurred. There is a deadline for application each year. Please refer to CAPS’s website ( https://www2.polyu.edu.hk/caps/sponsorship-for-offshore-placements/offshore-wie-sponsorship-ows ) for more information on eligibility and application procedure.

 

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