The SIWES Unit is responsible for the coordination of the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) in the University.

The objective of the Unit is to ensure that students in Science and Technology-based disciplines are made to acquire sufficient practical knowledge so that when they get employed on graduation they become immediately productive with little of no further training in their fields of specialization.

The Unit accomplishes this through the placement of students who are in their penultimate year in the relevant industrial environments for on-the-job training for a minimum of six months. In collaboration with the Industrial Training Fund, the Unit monitors and controls the industrial training programme through the use of industry and institution-based Supervisors. Students, at the end of the training programme, do present reports on their practical experiences at a departmental interactive forum where faculty members jointly access individual student’s performance on the programme as is required by the SIWES curriculum.

Currently, six hundred students drawn from seven colleges are participated in the 2009 SIWES programme in various industries and establishments in the country. Students in B. Agric degree courses carry out their industrial trainings in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike Mechanized Farms along with students from other SIWES – approved institutions. This is done in order not to compromise our national mandate of turning out practically sound agriculture graduates that will eventually assist the country in tackling hunger and poverty through the sustenance of the supply of adequate food supply to our teeming population.