ASSESSMENT OF STUDENTS' INDUSTRIAL WORK EXPERIENCE SCHEME IN TEACHER EDUCATION FOR SKILL DEVELOPMENT, ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION AND WEALTH CREATION

The study assessed the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme as a tool for Skill Development in Teacher Education for Economic Diversification and Wealth Creation. The purpose is to determine whether the beneficiaries of Students Industrial Work Experience scheme use skills acquired during the scheme in creating employment and or diversifying their sources of income thereby transcending into economic diversification and wealth creation. Three (3) research questions and three (3) hypotheses were proposed and used in the study. The study adopted descriptive survey design with a population of 1080 students, out of which 437 were sampled using simple random sampling techniques while snowball technique was used for the 100 respondents who are former students from the two schools. Questionnaires were used to elicit information from the two categories of the respondents. The questionnaires were validated by two experts. Mean and standard deviations were used in analyzing the data collected. The results showed that beneficiaries of the scheme expect SIWES to contribute to their human resource development, that although SIWES contributes to the academic performance of its beneficiaries, more needs to be done to maximize these achievements and that most beneficiaries do not make maximum use the of experiences gained in SIWES for diversification of their economy and where this is done it is very limited. The study recommended among others that Beneficiary graduates of the scheme need to apply the skills acquired during SIWES maximally to create wealth and government agencies responsible for wealth creation should provide grants to graduates with skills and entrepreneurial capabilities to establish startups which will generate wealth and employment and by extension diversify the economy.