In Nigeria, undergraduates of tertiary institutions must undergo a compulsory four to six months (or one year) Students’ Industrial Work Experience Scheme otherwise known as Industrial Training and get a stipend upon completion of the programme. But many of them have yet to receive the payment even after graduating from their institutions.
One of the affected graduates, a music artiste and father-of-two, Mr Olugbenga Oluwayomi, about nine years ago, combed the city of Ibadan, Oyo State, to get a placement for his SIWES.
He visited many firms in the city, pleaded, and struggled prior to getting attached to a company for the duration of four months after which he returned to campus. He walked miles to submit his documents in school and at the ITF office during the first two weeks after the commencement and conclusion of the training.
Oluwayomi hoped that once he completed his training and reported to his school, he would get a credit alert on his phone, indicating payment of the long-awaited allowance which he had planned to use for a savings scheme. He stated that his senior colleagues advised them not to place their hope on the payment because it may not materialise.
He told of how he studied music education from The Polytechnic Ibadan, Oyo State, adding that he graduated in 2015 and since then he had not received the stipend for the programme.
“I did SIWES and also embarked on a one-year industrial training after the National Diploma programme. I filled several forms during and after the training. We also submitted our bank details and I remembered vividly that it was an account I had with a bank with a new name that I submitted. The Fund didn’t pay anyone and we were about 21 people in my class then that went for the programme.
“Our seniors told us not to bother about the payment since they were not paid too. Those who eventually got paid were paid in their finals and were three years ahead of us. They don chop our allowances,” he said.
The SIWES is to prepare students of universities, polytechnics, colleges of agriculture, education, and technology for the work situation they are likely to face after leaving school.
On its website, it stated that ITF was established in 1971 and it is a grade ‘A’ parastatal operating under the aegis of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment. It has been operating for 50 years as a specialist agency that promotes and encourages the acquisition of industrial and commercial skills required for national economic development.
The main thrust of the ITF programmes and services is to stimulate human performance, improve productivity, and induce value-added production in industry and commerce. Through its SIWES and Vocational and Apprentice Training Programmes, the Fund also builds capacity for graduates and youth self-employment, in the context of Small Scale Industrialisation, in the economy.
There are over 48,000 ITF compiled employers registered on the ITF website and the Act required every employer with five employees or more or an annual turnover of N50m and above, to contribute one per cent of their annual payroll to the Fund.
There are basic requirements for one to qualify for the payment of the stipend. The student must have completed the training for the stipulated period and submitted several documents which include; a log book, training forms (SPE 1 form, form 8, master and placement list forms), bank details; bank account, sort code, and bank name.
The students will travel to the closest ITF office from their places of industrial attachment where they will submit some of the forms. Upon returning to their various institutions, they will submit their logbooks, bank details, and Form 8.
A sum of N2,500 monthly is paid to an IT student from any university, polytechnic, college of education, agriculture, or technology upon completion of the training. This indicates that N15,000 is payable to each student on a six-months internship while those of four-months training gets N10,000 each. In a university, if a class has an average of 10 students and is not paid, then a total of N150,000 is not accounted for.
In some institutions, the whole class was not paid with each set in a department having an average of 20 students. Some of the affected students were from many higher institutions in the country including the 2016 set of Biochemistry graduates of Madonna University and The Polytechnic Ibadan.
In 2017, the House of Representatives resolved to probe the ITF for alleged non-payment of SIWES allowance to students. The issue was addressed during a plenary session but after five years, there has been no progress on the issue.
Also in 2021, Director-General, ITF, Mr Joseph Ari, said that the Fund paid more than $1bn to 87,537 students as training allowances in 2021. But some students who participated in the scheme at the time had yet to receive their allowance.
In February 2022, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Accounts ordered the probing of the ITF over the operation of the agency’s budgets between 2018 and 2021 without the approval of the National Assembly. The ITF, in its written submission to the committee, said it spent N37,592,730,753 in 2018; N43,133,753,661 in 2019; N43,468,030,400 in 2020; and N43,947,801,437 in 2021. The committee discovered the extra-budgetary spending while grilling the management of the ITF, which was placed on status inquiry by the committee.
Another graduate affected, Taiwo Jaiyeola, studied industrial chemistry at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, and participated in SIWES during the lockdown in 2020 for six months. She noted that in the group created for them by their school, a Google form document was sent for each student to fill in their details.
“My school ensured we did the IT despite the lockdown though it was hard to get a place for the attachment. We filled in our names, course of study, account number, sort code, and branch. It was a detailed form. Our lecturers threatened that if we didn’t observe the SIWES and submit the necessary details we wouldn’t be paid the N15,000. We did all of this but didn’t see anything. I don’t think anyone in my set got paid,” she said dejectedly.
She stated that after the compulsory training, they submitted their logbook and the students gave a detailed report in a paper and defended it before a panel of lecturers where they asked them several questions concerning the experiences and lessons learnt throughout the attachment.
She noted that she got information that they usually got paid after graduating, adding that an alumnus told her he got paid during his mandatory, one-year National Youth Service Corps scheme.
Jaiyeola said, “The money doesn’t go round. In the long run, not everyone is paid. I had the IT at the Water Corporation, Eleyele, Ibadan, and I wasn’t paid anything. We worked hard in the company. I spent a lot on transport fares. Some of my friends rented an apartment where they got placement even though they weren’t being paid by the company and ITF.”
She added that a friend of hers at the University of Osun, Osun State, got paid and it made her conclude that the money didn’t get to everyone.
She said, “Getting paid for SIWES shouldn’t be a thing of luck. As long as one meets the requirements for IT and submitted the necessary documents, then one should be paid. It would be a different case if there were 200 students in a class and 190 got it. The remaining 10 will be asked what they did wrongly. That will show that the money is judiciously disbursed.
“Is it ITF that is withholding the money or is it the institutions that are not submitting details of the students to ITF? Those in charge of ITF in schools should be interrogated. The money should be accounted for and paid promptly. Why will one do IT in a year and wait for over two years to receive the payment? It is unfair for them to keep the money.”
For over 10 years, a civil engineering graduate-cum-bank worker from the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State, Opeyemi Elijah, had yet to receive his IT stipend. Sharing his experience with our correspondent, he said that some of his course mates got the payment, adding that he and several others didn’t receive payment despite the various forms they submitted.
He said, “The payments came unexpectedly to some of us but many of us didn’t get paid. I think one person for ministry don chop am. I went to the ITF office and submitted my log book and other details. I think that was my first time entering the elevator.”
Elijah stated that he could barely remember the exact year he did the IT due to several strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, guessing it could be sometime in 2011. He added that there were some speculations that they didn’t use the full-time required and made it seem the students were at fault.
Asked if he and his colleagues complained at the ITF office in his school, he said, “Who will go and why?”
He, however, stated that some students affirmed that they were paid N15,000 each on days they didn’t expect it.
Narrating her experience, a graduate of Madonna University, Elele, Rivers State, Roselyn Jire, described the situation of non-payment of ITF allowance as one that needed urgent attention. She hoped to get the allowance because she underwent the rigours of the industrial training and didn’t miss a day at work during the period of attachment in 2015 from April to September.
She said, “My place of attachment was Central Science Laboratory, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. Ile-Ife didn’t have an ITF office hence I travelled to Ibadan twice to submit the commencement form and other forms after completion.
“When we returned to school, a list was brought to us to fill in our personal information and bank details which we did. To my utmost surprise six years after graduation, I have yet to receive any alert from the ITF. No graduate of Biochemistry from Madonna University in 2016 received the stipend.”
Jire noted that if the NYSC could promptly pay corps members, it was incumbent on the ITF to do the same.
The biochemist stated that after graduating, they got the news that the 2016 set of the Department of Microbiology got paid and they wondered what they did differently.
