SIWES: How successful is the marriage of Town and Gown. A Commentary

Abstract

Most Nigerian university graduates, especially, those in the natural sciences do not have the required competencies in the handling of equipment and machinery. This is not so because students have not been taught the theory of their chosen discipline but more so as a result of non-availability of such equipment and machineries in a majority of the country institutions of higher learning. The Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) as an instrument of intervention to stemming the tide of this technical incompetence among university graduates in the country is government response. Siwes therefore, at inception was a marriage of Town & Gown designed to bridge the knowledge gap between classroom theorizing and the actual industry or practical work situations; and, over time, the scheme enjoyed tremendous patronage as an identifiable method of a government structured collective action directed at a public problem. How successful this marriage of Town and Gown has been is at the heart of this commentary and two forcefully differing macro-economic views provide the stimulus for scrutinizing Siwes as a government instrument of intervention. Thus this is an attempt at policy review of the Siwes scheme; a sort of inquiry as to how successful the marriage had been and its recorded successes if any or better still, to ascertain if the scheme is simply, another successful failure in public policy. The paper applies the set based theory of comparative analysis on the one hand and on the other, the critical discourse analysis approach as a methodology arguing that, if government intervention is justified, as in capital outlay being commensurate to desired expectations, then let the Keynesians have it. Otherwise, the Friedman theory that policies are better judged by the results they produce rather than their intensions hold; concluding that, there is the need to acknowledge Phelps need for change and think the scheme anew or stop this grand wastage called SIWES.