Visiting UPM accounting students doing practical training

I have been assigned to visit accounting students doing their practical training in Sabah, Selangor, KL and Kedah before and this time Perak is my next destination. There are three students to visit, two in Ipoh and one in Teluk Intan. Those in Ipoh are an Indian boy who works with Siva & Co. and one Chinese girl at Ernst & Young. The third one at Teluk Intan is a Malay girl who works with AlJafree & Co. Truly 1Malaysia.  So yesterday I took my family on a trip to Perak. I managed to interview each one of them together with their assigned supervisors. I'm quite happy that they managed to do lots of accounting, auditing, taxation as well as visiting clients and do stock takings. 

The only thing that I'm not happy with is the allowance paid by these firms to the students. Ernst & Young paid RM600 per month, which is quite reasonable given that they are located in Ipoh. But when I asked the supervisor at Siva & Co. they told me that they give allowance of RM250 to each student and they didn't bother to check whether other audit firms in the locality are paying the same rate or not. 

But the worst of them all is AlJafree & Co. The girl is working for six months for them for free! Apparently the boss told her that if she ask for an allowance, he will simply refuse to offer her the job. He feels that the experience is good enough for her. However, sometimes the boss will give some 'gift' to the girl, for the past five months she has received RM200 from him. I asked her why don't she do her practical training in other firms but she prefers to work there even without pay. I don't have anything else to say.