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.

According to him” 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 1000 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. ”

Ezeibe who was a lead lecturer at the conference urged the Federal Government to integrate polytechnic education to meet the objective of lifting quality life in the sustainable development goals.

“Government should migrate away from monolithic economic model through diversification and promote skills education to meet skill need of the nation .”

He charged all stakeholders in education to 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 said. (The PUNCH)

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