Assessment of the Viability of Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (Siwes) in Nigerian Tertiary Education as Panacea for Graduate Unemployment

Abstract

This paper assessed the viability of the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) in Nigerian tertiary education as a panacea for graduate unemployment. Consequent upon this, the explication of the philosophical background of Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) was done in relation to its emergence and the subsequent objectives that necessitated its emergence. This was done principally in connection to the philosophy of pragmatic epistemology of empiricism, the context within which SIWES was premised, within the purview of acquisition of knowledge and skills through practical experience. The inclusion of SIWES in Nigerian tertiary education curriculum was systematically done to guarantee the graduates in their respective areas of specialization the needed employment experiences in the competitive labour market, and thereby enhance the country’s technological and vocational/technical frontiers towards poverty reduction and economic development. It was discovered, based on the assessment of the programme initiative in this paper that, the effort by the Federal Government of Nigeria in this direction, though, laudable and commendable, has not yielded the desired results due to factors such as dearth of industries in the country and the subsequent refusal of the available ones to accept students on industrial attachment, inadequate functional libraries, laboratories, vocational/technical workshops among others. Based on this, suggestions were made to make the SIWES programme initiative viable in reducing graduate unemployment in the country, some of which include implementation of the necessary disciplinary/punitive measures to erring industries so as to enforce compliance in accepting students for industrial attachment; adequate provision of the needed practical teaching and learning infrastructures such as power supply, laboratories, vocational/technical workshops to enhance the acquisition of practical experience as a panacea for graduate unemployment in the country.

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