The Executive Secretary of the National Board For Technical Education, Professor Idris Bugaje, on Tuesday decried the rate at which the government was converting the existing polytechnics into Universities.
He stated this at a retreat for the chairmen of governing councils and principal officers of federal polytechnics, organised by the board, in collaboration with the Committee of Federal Polytechnic Rectors.
Speaking on the theme, ‘Improving Polytechnic Administration; The Role of Governing Council And Management,’ he lamented that Nigeria has over 200 universities and was still converting the few existing polytechnics.
He said, “If you convert a college of education into a university, you are upgrading them. If you convert a polytechnic, you are degrading that institution. So we need to stop this craze of converting polytechnics into universities.
“As we know, China converted 600 universities in 2017 into polytechnics because China knows the value of technical education and the value of skills because they want to be on top.
“If Nigeria wants to lead Africa and want to be among the top 20 countries in the next 20 to 30 years, we must change our attitude towards Technical and Vocational Education and Training.”
He further said the present state of Polytechnics in Nigeria was not encouraging, saying that all hands must be on deck to reposition the sector as quickly as possible.
“Without mincing words, the following are identified as key issues that are impeding the growth of Polytechnics in Nigeria; corrupt practices, poor corporate governance, governing Council and management power play, power tussle, conflict of interest etc, dearth of local and multinational manufacturing industries to employ TVET,” Bugaje said.
To overcome some of the challenges, he stressed the need for at least 20 percent of Nigeria’s annual budget allocation to the education sector (UNESCO recommendations is 26 percent) while 50% of the annual education budget should be allocated to TVET not the present average of 20 percent, because TVET was capital intensive.
Declaring the retreat open, David Gende, the representative of the minister of education, Malam Adamu Adamu, charged administrators of Polytechnics to at all times be abreast of current laws, government policies, government white papers, circulars, gazettes and other relevant documents that will assist them in taking decisions without undue interference in the day-to-day running of the institutions.
He revealed that the ministry was “pursuing the release of the fifteen billion naira for the revitalisation of facilities in the public Polytechnics in Nigeria, review of the Scheme of Service as well as resolve the issue of CONTISS 15 migration.”
“Furthermore, the federal government is effectively engaging the staff unions on their demands. All these are geared towards the improvement in the quality of research teaching and learning in the sector,” he added.
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