The Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme otherwise known as SIWES is beset with numerous challenges.
In this interview by ISAAC SHOBAYO, the director-general of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Joseph Ari,
says funding is the most pressing of these challenges. Excerpt.
What really is the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme?
The Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme is a brainchild of the ITF. It was initiated to provide students of engineering, technical and allied disciplines with practical experience of the real work situation they are likely to find on graduation. The Industrial Training Fund administers and midwifes the programme on behalf of the Federal Government; but a lot of people confuse SIWES with the usual internship. They are not the same. The ITF does not work in isolation; it works with various regulatory bodies from the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education under the supervision of the National Universities Commission, National Board for Technical Education and National Commission for Colleges of Education.
Who identifies the students and courses to be on the scheme?
The regulatory bodies are the ones to identify the courses to be run and to be included in the scheme. They send the placement list to the ITF and we carry out verification and work hand in hand with them. The greatest challenge facing SIWES is the payment of participants. The programme started with 11 universities in 1973. As of today, there are about 222 institutions comprising universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education. It started with few students, but as of today, we are talking of millions of students. The number is growing every year.
Students taking part in this scheme have been complaining of delay in payment of their allowances. Since this falls within the purview of your responsibility, what are you doing to address the situation?
The funding has continued to drop over the years. For example, last year, the budget for SIWES was N1.5 billion but what was paid into the coffers of ITF was N700 million; so you can see the shortfall. The earlier the students know this, the better. That is why you will see that some students would have graduated before they receive their money. This training is not new all over the world; it is found in developed countries. In Germany where a semblance of SIWES is practised, it is known as apprenticeship programme. While the government pays for such in Nigeria, it is paid for by parents in Germany; but the Nigerian government does that to encourage students and to alleviate the suffering of parents. Many people don’t know much about SIWES; all they have been saying is that ITF has not paid us. All these are functions of the budget. It may surprise you to know that after signing of the budget, the regulatory bodies are still affiliating more institutions to be part of the scheme. So, more students are joining without corresponding increase in allocations.
What is ITF doing to improve the scheme?
Well, as part of efforts to improve the scheme, the ITF has stepped up engagements with the supervising agencies and other stakeholders to address some of the problems bedeviling the programme. To this end, the SIWES conference and stakeholders’ meeting are on a biennial basis with participation from all the regulator agencies, the federal ministries of education, industry, trade and investment, labour and productivity and employers of labour. Resolutions from these events are constantly implemented to resolve the numerous challenges that are encountered in the administration of the programme. I strongly believe that this year’s conference will come up with something that will put an end to all these challenges. But I want to say that it is a scheme that is needed if we are to have qualitative education in this country. Our students need practical experiences, especially in engineering and its allied fields.
Apart from SIWES, what is the involvement of your organization in vocational training in secondary schools?
The Industrial Training Fund has proposed an overhaul of the country’s education curriculum to incorporate technical and vocational education and skills training for Nigerian youths. We in ITF strongly believe that the hands-on skills training should begin from the creche or kindergarten, through the primary and secondary level of education. The Federal Ministry of Education needs to collaborate with the ITF and draw up an educational curriculum that would inculcate technical vocational education and skills training right from the creche or kindergarten till primary and secondary schools. There is the need to combine vocational skills with education in line with the reality in the country and what is obtainable in the developed world. Paying more premium and attention to paper qualification rather than hands-on education was where the nation got it wrong. Nigeria would not be able to fix its infrastructure problem or end building collapse cases with paper qualifications without hands-on skills. Gone are the days when hands-on skills were seen as dirty, dangerous and dreaded. Based on the trend all over the world today, especially among the developing and developed countries, skills acquisition is the currency of the 21st century.