UNIVERSITY and college graduates and students have been urged to utilize education opportunities offered by the international internship programmes.

Revocatus Kimario, Sokoine University Graduate Entrepreneurs Cooperative (SUGECO) executive director, made the call in Morogoro over the weekend during the ‘Jiajiri Dialogue’ held at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) main campus.

Kimario said the opportunity for international internship was available for graduates and students in various fields including agriculture, animal science, range management, food science and technology, mechanical engineering, mechatronics, business administration, law, education in science, environmental sciences, construction engineering, tourism, hospitality and culinary arts.

He said that youth who will get the opportunity to participate in a long-term study programme will be sent to Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway and the United States for 18 months while short-term of 90 days in summer time in Germany for ongoing students only.

“Our goal is to allow them to explore technology advancement, the working environment, different cultures and to open their mindset in certain areas. At the end we want them to become international experts who can work in any country and deliver at the highest level of expertise,” he explained.

Kimario said there are growing opportunities for interns internationally adding that in the year 2015 only 20 youth attended the programme in Israel while today, 500 are in the USA and 600 are in Europe and thousands have completed the programme.

 “Today the programme can accommodate more than 5,000 youth in long- and short-term programmes. The internship is wide compared to 2015 as for now we are taking a student or graduate from different faculty and universities, not only SUA. Good enough is that for continuing students the internship is accepted as a part of their studies.”

He added: “For ongoing students, we have a summer programme which takes place in June to October each year and the requirement is to enrol students to any faculty and to any higher educational institution."

According to Kimario, there is a great demand for skilled workers aged 18-45 years who must be a graduate from higher learning institutions in the area of livestock and animal husbandry with direct subjects in piggery, poultry, equine, dairy and horticulture.

In order to enable students to seize the opportunity, SUGECO partnered with CRDB Foundation which has provided euro24 million (67bn/-); as a travelling cost and seed capital for the graduates after returning to Tanzania.

Apart from the internship programme, Kimario said SUGECO incubates students’ innovations so that they can create employment for themselves and others to stimulate economic development in the country.

CRDB Bank Foundation startups development and incubation manager, Sharon Sule said they have partnered with SUGECO to support the programme by facilitating the students to attain the opportunity and a seed capital for those with innovative ideas in transforming agriculture and livestock sectors.

“CRDB Bank Foundation's main goal is to support women and youth through the Imbeju programme in capacity building in different areas including internship and seed capital; we put our efforts more on funding them to acquire business and investment skills,” Sule noted.

Earlier, the founder and SUGECO board of director, Dr Anna Temu said the cooperative was founded in 2011 as a platform for science students to extract their practical knowledge into practical ways to support farmers specifically in agriculture and livestock.

SUGECO operation director, Joseph Massimba, said regardless of the graduate’s background, the employment market needs innovative, competent and independent performing human resources which a student can get easier in international internship as they are given the top priority in the programme.

Speaking through a zoom meeting from Germany, Godwin Matiku, who is a food scientist graduate from SUA, said the programme has opened up the door of working culture noting that in the company he is working there is no difference between chief executive officer and junior staff.