The Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) responded to a statement issued by the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) yesterday, reaffirming that it has urged participating organisations to strengthen their intern management.
The CCAC announced in a statement yesterday that an organisation participating in the “Youth Summer Internship Programme 2025” had failed to strictly supervise and verify students’ attendance records, thereby failing to assist students in developing a positive life and work attitude.
According to the statement, the CCAC received a complaint from an organisation alleging that an intern participating in the programme was repeatedly late for work and left work early, while failing to fill in the “Internship Attendance Sheet” in accordance with his actual working hours. The complaint questioned whether there was a lack of adequate supervision and verification of the relevant records.
The statement identified the student as a local male.
Following an investigation, the statement pointed out that during the internship period, the student was indeed repeatedly late for work and failed to record his attendance in accordance with his actual arrival and departure times
Instead, the student logged the organisation’s standard working hours. However, the statement added that after arriving late, the student had, on his own initiative, returned to work early in the afternoon to make up for the lost time.
On the other hand, the CCAC noted that the student failed to declare the arrangement in advance, obtain approval from his department head, or reflect the compensatory time in his attendance records
The CCAC reaffirmed in its statement that the purpose of the Youth Summer Internship Programme is to encourage young students to actively integrate into society, learn by doing, and develop a positive attitude towards life and learning.
Therefore, public and private organisations participating in the programme should assist students in building a proper work ethic through clear instructions and appropriate supervision, the statement said, adding that institutions must strictly verify attendance records to ensure the programme is clearly understood and runs smoothly.
Moreover, as the number of completed internship hours is a crucial factor in determining the granting of subsidies and confirming whether students have successfully completed their training, attendance records must be genuine, accurate, and verifiable, the statement noted.
The bureau’s response to the CCAC statement underlined that, after taking into account the views of the latter, it agreed that there is a need to strengthen interns’ attendance management in both public and private institutions.
The bureau also said that it has immediately optimised its guidelines for entities and the related work checklist within its existing mechanism. The bureau added that it will issue the updated Instructions on the Handling of Interns’ Attendance by Entities Offering Internship to the more than 70 participating entities before the launch of next year’s programme. The bureau added that it will reinforce these requirements through a raft of briefing sessions, clarifying the attendance management mechanism and instructing participating entities to strictly enforce and verify interns’ attendance.
Meanwhile, the statement noted that the bureau will also strengthen pre-placement training for interns to help them better adapt to the workplace environment.
This image downloaded from the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) website yesterday shows its official logo.
