SEAMEO INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME P.2

PART 2: WORK LIFE

I am Lintang Rati Prastika, Partnership Officer of SEAEMEO QITEP in Science (SEAQIS), and my colleague Ms. Tika Karlina, Personnel Officer of SEAQIS, got the opportunity to be the participants of SEAMEO Internship Programme at SEAMEO Secretariat (SEAMES) Office in Bangkok, Thailand.

SEAMES Office is located at Sukhumvit Road Bangkok. There is also UNSECO Secretariat of Thailand at the same building, Mom Luang Pin Malakul Centenary Building. SEAMES Office is located on the 4th and 5th floors of in the building.

The location of SEAMES Office is very strategic because it is located in the centre of the city of Bangkok which is quite close to shopping centre and tourist attraction. The access of public transportation to SEAMES Office is quite easy because the office’s location is between Tong Lo and Ekkamai BTS stations, it also closes to the Sukhumvit 40 and Major Ekkamai Bus Stop.

Working hours at SEAMES are 08.30 to 16.30 with lunch break at 12.00 to 13.00. There is a cafeteria in the SEAMES-UNESCO Building. There, personnel can order breakfast or lunch. They can eat there or ask the waiters to deliver their food to their rooms. The SEAMES office is close to the Bangkok Planetarium. There is a food court that sells various food and beverages. Many employees from office around Sukhumvit had lunch at that place.

The SEAMEO-UNESCO building is Muslim friendly. All toilets in the building have water spray (not only tissue), and there is Islamic Prayer Room (Musalla) on the 6th floor with complete facilities. At the Musalla, sandals are provided for ablution, and it has a special place for ablution in the toilet near the room. There are also towels, prayer mats, sarongs, caps (peci), and mukena (praying clothes for women). We can carry out Dzuhur and Asar prayers comfortably there.

After telling the story about the location and condition of the SEAMES Office, the story continues to the work situation we experienced at the SEAMES Office.

We started our internship program at SEAMES Office on 4 February 2019. Our first activity was work orientation and visiting each room while introducing each staff member in the room. The introduction session was accompanied by Ms. Tachana, the administrative staff. At that time, a lot of staffs were on leave commemorating the Chinese New Year on February 5, 2019.

Ms. Tika was placed in the finance department according to her field of expertise, under the supervision of Ms. Kornkanok, Finance Manager. While I was placed in the internship room as a Project Assistant to help the Project Offices, Ms. Piyapa Su-angavatin, preparing SEAMES projects and activities.

I was placed in a room with 4 other interns from universities in Thailand, namely Mr. Chakrit Poosri, Mr. Thitiphong Sukheeket, Mr. Krittalak Chumcharoen, and Mr. Nithan Thienhirun. We were divided to work different tasks to assist in the implementation of various SEAMES projects. I got the assignment to help preparing the 5th Polytechnic Meeting (Poly Meeting) which was held on 26-27 March 2019 in Ipoh, Malaysia.

I was given an access to the Poly Meeting’s official email account, and I was responsible for managing the preparation process for 2 months. The duration of the Poly Meeting preparation time is very suitable for the duration of my internship at SEAMES. There were a lot of documents are prepared and distributed to the prospective meeting participants, such as invitation letter (including revised request by including the participant’s name), admin note (complete information about the meeting), compiling participant list, recap attendance confirmation, making certificate template, and response to the incoming email.

About 100 Universities and Polytechnic from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam were invited to attend this Poly Meeting.

In addition to the main task, I also had other experience to assist in several work assignments at SEAMES, such as: assessing participant blogs and making evaluation reports for SEA-Teacher batch 7, making workshop briefs and concept notes for SEA Creative Camp projects, helping the SEAMEO College Training for Indonesian Principals and Superintendents; School Leadership and Supervisory Program 2019, and compiled several concept notes requested by the Director of SEAMES at the time Dr. Gatot.

In addition, I also learned many things in SEAMES about the system administration and documents recording that are server-based as well as how to make certificates through the SEAMEO e-certificate online application.

That is my working life story as Project Assistant in SEAMES. Now, Ms. Tika will tell about her working life experience in SEAMES.

Point of view: Ms Tika Karlina

During my internship programme, I was placed in the Finance Division and supervised by Mrs. Konrkanok, Finance Manage. I am honoured that I got a chance to work in finance division in my internship programme, so I could meet with all finance staff in SEAMEO Secretariat (SEAMES). The finance division in SEAMES consists of Mrs. Kornkarok Chureeganon as Finance Manager, Ms. Sujittra Sophonpattana as finance officer, Mrs. Buppha Jatiwattanachaikul as accountant (SEAMEO), Mrs. Rumpapak Poosri as accountant (SEAMES) and Mrs. Aim-on-Auiprasert as assistant accountant. They are very good and cooperated to me.

My first assignment in finance division was to give evaluation and completion about SEAInfo system. SEAInfo is a system that is being developed by SEAMEO Secretariat to provide information about SEAMEO Regional Centre Budgets and Programmes. The SEAInfo is not yet to publish because it is still being developed by the IT team of SEAMEO Secretariat. But, as a user who will use the application, I got a chance to try it first and gave my opinion to the IT team. Aside from that, I got an assignment to make the manual guide for SEAInfo.

Besides learned about finance, I also learned administration process in SEAMEO Secretariat from Ms. Natcha Kampiranond, Administration Manager. Ms. Natcha gave me the permission to access their intranet system because all the information about SEAMEO Secretariat is already in intranet system. During this internship I also learned a lot about my office, SEAMEO QITEP in Science, because Ms. Kornkarok asked me to read documents such as Enabling Instrument, Annual Report, and Working Paper during the early years of establishment of SEAME QITEP in Science. I also got an assignment to assess participant blogs for SEA-Teacher batch 7.

On 25 – 28 February 2019 to celebrate the International Mother Tongue, UNESCO Bangkok held language classes of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Danish, and Thai language for UNESCO and SEAMES staff. Each class was held for 30 minutes. The teacher came from UNESCO intern. Unfortunately, I only attended the Chinese and Danish class. Even the language is hard, it was fun experienced because I met with people from different country and I could taste the local snack from China and Denmark.

During our internship, administration division held special event such as staff birthday celebration and farewell party for the terminated staff. The event was really fun because it makes a bond of each staff and also give appreciation to the staffs.

There was training of SEAMEO College: School Leadership and Supervisory Programme (SLSP) which was held on 2 – 23 March 2019 in SEAMES. The participants were principal and school supervisor from kindergarten, high school, vocational school and also from non-formal organization in Indonesia. They learnt about leadership and supervisory. One of the courses of the training was school visit, and I got the assignment to accompany the participants. The objective of the school visit was to learn and benchmark the school in Thailand. The schools that we visited represent each of Triamudomsoksa Nomklau Phatum Thani School. Suraou Maijaroun School representative participants from kindergarten and Triamudomsoksa Nomklau Phatum Thani School represent participants from high school. Second day of school visit, we went to Saowabha Vocational College and Donmuang Vocational College on 8 March 2019. Both schools represent participants from vocational school. The last school was Phatum Thanin Non-Formal Education and it represents the participant from non-formal education.

On the last day of our internship, we were asked to share our experience during our 2 months of internship in SEAMEO Secretariat. After that Ms. Kornkanok and Ms. Natcha gave us certificate for the completion of our internship programme in SEAMEO Secretariat. Lastly, we bid farewell to our beloved new colleagues in SEAMEO Secretariat on 28 March 2019, and we went back to Indonesia on the next day.

Like this article?

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter

Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

Scroll to top
Skip to content