The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics has lamented that some policies of the Federal Government are working against polytechnic education in Nigeria.
The chairman of ASUP, Anderson Ezeibe, said this on Thursday while delivering a keynote lecture during a three-day international conference organised by the union at the Ikot Osurua campus of the Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, with the theme ‘Redefining The Mandate Of Polytechnic Education For Economic Diversification And Sustainability’.
He said that the government by coming up with unfavourable policies such as HND/BSc dichotomy, inability to enhance academic continuity for HND graduates, and the disparity between HND/BSc holders in government circles among others had helped to demarket polytechnics education in the country.
He regretted that the mandate of polytechnic education has failed as a result of the failure of the government to integrate polytechnic into national planning, especially in the technological development drive.
He noted that such was the situation where Welders were hired from India for the Dangote refinery project at the expense of polytechnic graduates, adding that such an attitude encouraged capital flight while homegrown polytechnic manpower walloped in unemployment.
He insisted that negligence of Polytechnics mandate has resulted in the high level of unemployment, poverty and poor entrepreneurship.
The ASUP chairman maintained that polytechnics education is not encouraged. In some polytechnics, the student population is less than 1000 while some state governors change their Polytechnics to universities instead of developing it.
While calling for the law that established Polytechnic education to be reviewed to meet emerging realities in our nation’s technological development, he said that government is demarketing polytechnic education through their policies.
Source/PUNCH
