APPRAISAL OF STUDENT INDUSTRIAL WORK EXPERIENCE SCHEME IN RADIOGRAPHY IN DEPARTMENT OF RADIOGRAPHY AND RADIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY, NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY, NNEWI CAMPUS

Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) is a skill training program designed to prepare and expose students of university for the industrial work situation they are likely to meet after graduation. Many universities are implementing this training program as one of the compulsory requirements of most fields of study. The study is to access and appraise the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme by Radiography students of Nnamdi Azikiwe University. Data were collected electronically through Google form in the form of spreadsheet. Data collected were analysed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 22.0 (SPSS IBM Corp, Armonk, USA, 2012) and descriptive statistics were used to analysed percentages, mean and standard deviations.177 subjects participated in the study. 93(52.5%) femal and 84 (47.5%) males. Majority of participants were in the age range of 20-23 years. Availability of good equipment greatly influenced their choice of centers to go for the SIWES training. The cost of transportation was the major challenges faced the students of 149 (84.2%). Greater majority 176(99.4%) described their SIWES experience as highly educative. All respondents 177(100%) unanimously support the continuation of SIWES as a compulsory part of radiography studies. Although suggested that the government should give adequate support for transportation. SIWES is an essential process in Practical training which provides students the facilities and means of bridging the gap between career expectations developed in the classroom and the reality of employment in the real world. The cost of transportation is the major challenge faced by the student and they suggested that the government should give adequate support to alleviate it.