Bennett Oghifo
Some policies of the federal government are counterproductive to polytechnic education in Nigeria, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has said.
National President of ASUP, Dr. Anderson Ezeibe, stated this while delivering a keynote address at a three-day international conference organised by the union at the Ikot Osurua Campus of the Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, recently.
The conference had the theme ‘Redefining The Mandate of Polytechnic Education for Economic Diversification and Sustainability’.
Ezeibe listed some of these unfavourable policies as HND/BSc dichotomy, inability to enhance academic continuity for HND graduates, and the disparity between HND/BSc holders in government circles, among others, adding that these had gone a long way to reduce the worth of polytechnics education in the country.
“Negligence of polytechnics mandate has resulted in the high level of unemployment, poverty and poor entrepreneurship.
“Polytechnics education is not encouraged. In some polytechnics, the student population is less than 1,000 while some state governors change their polytechnics to universities instead of developing it.
“Government is demarketing polytechnic education through their policies. The law that established Polytechnic education must be reviewed to meet emerging realities in our nation’s technological development, he said. ”
According to him, the federal government should integrate polytechnic education to meet the objective of lifting quality life in the sustainable development goals.
He said, “Government should migrate away from the monolithic economic model through diversification and promote skills education to meet the skill needs of the nation.”
All stakeholders in education, he said, should “work in synergy to mainstream Polytechnic education into the nation’s development plan.
“This will ensure that the government pays the right attention to funding polytechnics, and migrate the tertiary level of certification to Bachelor of Technology with a National Diploma retained as a feed for Bachelor of Technology.
“Reverse the infrastructure deficits, review curriculum, and address the issue of staff remuneration to retain qualified personnel as well as restore technical colleges as feed for OND programmes across the nation.”
He stated that the mandate of polytechnic education has failed because of the failure of the federal government to integrate polytechnic education into national planning, especially in the technological development drive.
