Some students of Abia State University bare their minds on how they are learning new things outside the classroom on their chosen field of studies  

• Florence Nkwocha

IT is common to hear students on their industrial training, IT, or internship lament over their unpleasant experiences, especially the challenges encountered in the process of finding a firm that can accommodate and support them even financially. While it is expected of students to go out and acquire practical knowledge in their chosen fields, it is also not compulsory for firms to support them financially.

While internship is peculiar to polytechnics, most universities have followed suit depending on the course of study of the students. The major objective of industrial training is to help students apply theoretical knowledge and school-based skills to practice before they graduate.

Though industrial training provides students with work experience that prepares them for the work place, but the major advantage is that it helps students discover their areas of career interests which they are most likely to pursue. But despite the advantages, industrial training is not without its challenges, as students face the difficulties of getting firms that would not just absorb them in their core areas of competence, but pay them monthly allowances.

Some students of Abia State University, Uturu, who are currently on two months industrial training said they were not finding the training easy. Some of them told Realnews that the training is time consuming and doesn’t give them time to attend to other things. Though they acknowledge that the training is the practical aspect of what they are studying in school, but the fact they are not getting paid makes it a little difficult for them.

Elizabeth Dim, who is studying Linguistic at Abia State University, is on IT with Dope TV, Ikeja, Lagos, said the training has not been an easy thing for her because she was not used to waking up very early in the morning as she now does. But as a result of the training she now wakes up very early in the morning do her house chores go to work and comes back in the very late in the evening. Though she is not being paid by the company, she is not facing any financial challenges going to work every day.

According to Dim, her uncle and parents are providing for her transport fares. “The training has taught me a lot about my field of study, what journalism is all about because there in school we thought it was easy. During these few months of my industrial training, I have learnt a lot of things like how to edit a story, how to use words in a sentence and how to interview a client among others. In the area of entertainment, politics, I get to know what is going on in our country because every second of the day, if I’m not watching news I am reading newspaper. In fact, this industrial training has taught me a lot and got me motivated more about journalism,” she said.

For Mercy Irechukwu, classmate of Dim at the Abia State University, who is attached with Abia State Broadcasting Corporation, Umuahia, her greatest challenge is finance to support her movement every day. She said she was finding it difficult to cope because of the distance of the office to her house. “In the first place I find it difficult to cope with transport fare because the distance from my house to the office is far so I find it difficult to come to work early.

“But that is not the issue. My industrial training has taught me a lot about journalism because I thought journalism was easy. But the reverse is the case because it requires your attention, involvement, seriousness for you to be perfect. In my industrial training I learnt how to write news, cast news and how to edit. It taught me things I don’t know like fashion programme, politics. I get to know things happening round the world. In fact, this IT taught me a lot about my field of study.”

Another student Cynthia Ubani, working with Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, has found out that nursing is not an easy profession too. According to her, it needs total attention, hospitality, intelligence and seriousness for someone to get to higher level in the profession. “During my industrial training I learnt a lot because we are taken to the hospital to see things with our eyes from their I learn how to dress a patient, give injection, take blood sample for test and many other things about health and maintenance. During child delivery you are there to see the process yourself and other operation being taken place in the hospital. I know it is stressful but the experience taught me a lot about the profession I’m studying in the university,” she said.

The industrial training programme came into existence following decree No. 47 of October 8 1971 as amended in 1990. This decree gave birth to the founding of the Industrial Training Fund, ITF, in 1973/1974, which in turn established the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme, SIWES, to bridge the gap between school-based knowledge and work-place skills.

– Oct 12, 2017 @ 14:30 GMT /