Business Educators’ Appraisal of Relevance of Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) to Business Education programme in Universities in South East, Nigeria.

Abstract

The essence of the study was to appraise the relevance of the Students’ Industrial Work Experience Scheme to business education programme. The study sought to identify the relevance of SIWES to the development of student academic career, the relevance of SIWES to business education graduates' job placement and the place of SIWES in the exposure of students to work method in acquiring skills and handling tools. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The population consisted of 77 Business Educators from Universities offering Business Education in South- East Nigeria. The researcher adopted a survey design for the study. A structured questionnaire of 28 items was used to elicit responses for the study. The research instrument was validated by three experts, the correlation coefficient obtained using the Spearman Brown Prophecy formula was .88. This indicates that the instrument was of a high level of reliability. Research questions were analyzed using the mean with standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using t-test at .05 level of significance. The findings showed that SIWES is relevant to student academic career,business education graduates' job placement and in exposure of students to work method in acquiring skills and handling tools. The researcher recommended among others that students' should be properly and adequately oriented on the importance of SIWES to their academic and professional development from their first year of study, monitored and supervised properly by both school and industry based supervisor to enhance their seriousness for job placement and students should participate actively in SIWES for development of their academic career.