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Operational Standards and Modalities of SIWES

Operational Standards and Modalities of SIWES

Some operational modalities which affect the attainment of set of standards, influence the quality of SIWES and impact the effectiveness of the scheme need to be further highlighted and emphasized.
Durations and Periods of Training: There had been a multiplicity of standards for periods and durations of training prescribed for participation in SIWES for different programmes as illustrated by a few examples depicted in Table 9 below: 



 
The dysfunctional situation brought about by the multiplicity of periods and durations of SIWES has now been streamlined through an innovation prescribing a 6-month single-stretch attachment mode for SIWES (Mafe, 2005a).

However, the importance of adequate duration of training in ensuring the effectiveness of SIWES must be stressed because the Training Phase actually consists of three sub-phases (Mafe, 2005a) as shown in Figure 5 below:
 
It is clear from the foregoing that for any meaningful acquisition of skills and learning by SIWES participants, the duration of the training intervention must be adequate.
Deadline for Posting and change of Placement: Deadline for posting is the latest time for students to report in industry in order to complete the required duration of SIWES before returning back to their institutions. In effect, any student reporting in industry long after the deadline would not be able to meet the required duration, thereby leading to a reduction in the extent of training that would otherwise have been received by the student.

Similarly, change of placement after the commencement of SIWES tends to shorten the duration that would otherwise have been available for meaningful training at either the initial or the new place of attachment. Consequently, it is imperative to encourage students to seek relevant and acceptable places of attachment early and to discourage them from trying to change their initial places of attachment after the commencement of SIWES in order to make the training intervention effective and beneficial to the student.

Placement of Students in Industry: As stated earlier, students cannot undergo SIWES without places of industrial attachment where they can acquire the desired competencies and RPSs.
Ideally, places of industrial attachment should be obtained and offered to students by the Coordinating Unit. However, the large numbers of students participating in SIWES, the decline in industrial capacity utilization, and inadequate staffing and logistics conspire to limit the ability of coordinating units to obtain and offer places of attachment to all eligible students.

Further, the requirement that students should arrange for their accommodation during SIWES dictates that they should be allowed and encouraged to seek places of industrial attachment which are convenient for them. However, such places must be subject to the approval of the coordinating unit in order to ensure their relevance to the disciplines of the students.

This inadequacies in he placement of students in industry militate against the effectiveness of SIWES. Because of the scarcity of quality places of attachment, students should be encouraged to undergo SIWES in small-and medium-scale industries with facilities that would enable them acquire RPSs relevant to their disciplines. In-fact, working in such organizations can point them towards and enhance their abilities to become entrepreneurs in the future (Mafe, 2003 and 2005b).

SIWES Orientation: SIWES is a course of study which is not formally taught in a classroom setting but in the workplace where the desired learning and acquisition of skills occur. Hence, there is a need to prepare students to transit from the classroom to the industrial work environment and, also, to meet the expectations of the other SIWES stakeholders. The SIWES Orientation programme is designed to achieve these goals.

However, as mentioned earlier, the orientation programme has not been completely effective in empowering students to fully benefit from SIWES due to factors traceable to the large numbers of issues and aspects of the scheme that should be thoroughly covered, the large numbers of participating students and the limited time normally available for the programme. These factors militate against thorough comprehension and understanding of the issues and aspects of SIWES that should be expoused during the orientation programme.

Since adequate information is vital in enabling students to derive the maximum benefits from participation in the scheme, it is agreed by stakeholders that a text on SIWES such as “Successful Participation in SIWES” (Mafe, 2009), should be an indispensable companion of every serious participant in SIWES in the same way as the Log Book is essential to participation in the scheme; and that the book should be used before, during and after embarking on SIWES.

Quality Assurance and Supervision: For a scheme as large as SIWES with the locus of training being outside the institution, it is imperative that the involvement of participants in training activities be monitored in situ in industry. This is necessary in order to guarantee the quality of the training intervention and also confer quality assurance on the effectiveness of the scheme.

As mentioned earlier, only very few institutions are able to supervise students on SIWES even once due to lack of logistics, particularly mobility, and adequate funding even though the standard set for supervision prescribes three rounds of visits to each student in industry. ITF which is expected to visit the students in industry on at least one occasion now vets and endorses the students’ log books at its various area offices.

The situation does not urgur well for quality assurance of the scheme; students undergoing SIWES in industry should not be abandoned by their institutions, moreso that participation in the scheme attracts credit loads that are supposed to be incorporated into calculating cumulative grade points averages (CGPAs) of students. Consequently, the present situation needs urgent amelioration through provision of the wherewithals necessary for effective supervision of students on SIWES.

SIWES as a Course of Study: There is hardly any other course which attracts as high as six and four credit units in universities and polytechnics/colleges of education respectively, in the same way as SIWES. In fact, prior to the scores or performance of students being incorporated into the CGPAs, SIWES attracted as high as 12 or 16 credit units. However, some institutions are yet to begin incorporating the scores in SIWES, which translates into one credit unit per month of training, into the calculation of CGPAs.

The allocation of credit units to SIWES and its incorporation into CGPAs underscore the importance of the scheme in the formation of competent and productive technical manpower. It is designed to make students take the training intervention seriously. Hence, there is a need to ensure that students actually earn the credits units allocated to SIWES through effective execution of all operational aspects of the scheme.

Assessment of SIWES: SIWES being a course of study with assigned credit units must be assessed to determine the performance of students in the scheme. Students are required to obtain a pass grade and failure to do so may lead to the student repeating his/her participation in the scheme.

However, there are no uniform standards or criteria set for the assessment of students in SIWES across all institutions. Initially at the University of Lagos, the criteria adopted were Log Book (30 marks), End -of-Training Report (20 marks), Oral Presentation (30 marks), ITF Form 8 (10 marks) and Interim Report of Supervisors (10 marks), making a total of 100 marks. The last two criteria (ITF Form 8 and Interim Report) were supposed to capture the student’s involvement in training while in industry; but these criteria are now presumed to be captured by the comments of the industry-based supervisor in the log book. Hence, the new criteria for assessment are:
 
Additionally, the University of Lagos has put in place sub-criteria for each of the three main criteria (Log Book, Training Report and Oral Presentation).
The need for a systematic assessment scheme for SIWES cannot be over-emphasized. Otherwise, the scores earned by students may end up being arbitrary since conditions under which they undergo training vary from one industry to another.
Payment of Allowances: Two modes of payment of student allowances had been adopted in the past. These were payment through the employer while the student is in industry and payment through the institution after the end of SIWES. Both modalities had thrown up
many problems which are capable of diminishing the significance of SIWES (Mafe, 2006). Some of these problems include:
• Delays in payment and, sometimes, non-payment of the student beneficiaries
• Inaccurate claims for re-imbursement by some employers.
• Diversion of student allowances to other uses by some employers
• Students already paid by employers claiming allowances though institutions
• Delays in payment of students by institutions
• Attempts by some institutions to inflate the number of students eligible for payment
• Diversion of student allowances for other purposes by some institutions.

Consequently, during the 10th Biennal SIWES Conference it was proposed that student allowances be paid on-line through the banks (Mafe, 2006). This proposal was accepted at the 11th Biennal SIWES Conference in 2008 and modalities were subsequently put in place to implement the proposal as from 2009. However, the website designed for this purpose (SIWESdata.org) has inherent problems which make the uploading of students’ data cumbersome and complicated. As a result the online payment of the allowances into individual student bank account is yet to be put into operation.
It is imperative for the Industrial Training Fund to remove all bottlenecks associated with the website (i.e. SIWESdata.org) to facilitate effective payment of student allowances whereby all eligible students are promptly paid in accordance with their performance while on training. This would ensure completeness, promptness and equity in payment of student allowances.


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