Polytechnics - Industries partnerships: A necessary tool for enhancing work skills acquisition of electrical and electronic engineering students.

Abstract

The study is designed to investigate the partnerships existing between polytechnics and industries and ways of facilitating the partnerships. Two research questions and a hypothesis guided the study. In carrying out this study, survey design was adopted. The study covers polytechnics and electrical industries in Niger State. The target population for this study was made up of 20 Lecturers, 32 Industrial Personnels and 126 ND II Students. The respondents were selected using purposeful sampling techniques, having a total of 110 respondents; 20 Industrial personnel, 15 Electrical/Electronic Engineering Lecturers and 75 National Diploma (ND II) Students. 32-items questionnaire which was validated by three experts was used to collect data. The data collected was analyzed using mean and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings revealed that there are partnerships in the following areas; placement of students for industrial training and supervision and there is no links and partnerships in provision of facilities and sponsorship of researches in the institutions. Polytechnics and industries should jointly organized seminars/conferences. It is recommended among others that; Industries should sponsor researches and practical activities in polytechnics, a system should be developed to enable practicing professional engineers from industries to work in polytechnics even on part time bases and the industrial advisory board of polytechnics should be constituted which should consist among others Alumni and industrial personnel.