KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has urged companies to consider giving a reasonable sum of allowance to interns to help cover their daily expenses.
However, he said the government would not set any fixed rates of payment because industrial training was not compulsory.
“We understand that internship is not a regular job but just an opportunity for early exposure to work but still we should give some allowance to cover transport and food expenditure.
“When I was the opposition leader in Parliament previously, I also hired interns for the office with the additional RM1,800 allowance given by the then government. I had to seek funds to pay at least RM1,000 to the interns then,” said Anwar.
He said this at a ceremony to launch the Capital Market Graduate Programme (CMGP) of the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) here today. Also present was Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin. – BERNAMA
