Undergraduate Students' Industrial Work Experience in Pharmacy Education: A Revelation for The Future

Background: The Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) is a training program aimed at preparing higher education students for future industrial careers. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted on computer and pharmacy students at Enugu State University of Science and Technology, utilizing a self-administered questionnaire. Data were cleaned and coded in Microsoft Excel and analyzed using SPSS (IBM Corp) version 27, employing descriptive statistics for variable description and inferential statistics to assess relationships between categorical variables, with a significance level of p ≤ 0.05. Results: In the study, out of the 205 questionnaires distributed, 198 questionnaires were retrieved. One hundred and six (106) participants are female and ninety-two (92) male. Most (87.9%) believed that SIWES effectively exposes students to real-world job situations. Furthermore, 77.8% strongly agreed that the curriculum offers substantial learning opportunities. Notably, 40% of computer science students reported a positive view of the SIWES program, compared to only 6% of pharmacy students (χ2(1) =6.147; p=0.046). Similarly, 72.5% of computer science students viewed the curriculum favorably, compared to just 6% of pharmacy students (χ2(1) =8.217; p=0.016). Conclusion: The students had a good knowledge of the aim of SIWES and a positive attitude toward the SIWES program.