Efforts are being intensified to give Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH) a degree-awarding status, the Rector, Mr Olayinka Sogunro, said on Saturday.

The rector gave the assurance at a meeting of the Association of Communication Scholars and Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN).

The event was hosted by the institution’s School of Communication and Liberal Studies, in conjunction with Diamond Award for Media Excellence.

Sogunro said that, by the upgrade, the institution would run National Diploma and Higher National Diploma programmes alongside degree programmes.

“We are working on the upgrade of this polytechnic to a university status, but our polytechnic will be different from the conventional university because we are not going to abandon our National Diploma and Higher National Diploma programmes.

“We are going to run them concurrently so that students would have acquired the necessary skills and theoretical path upon graduation,” he said.

According to him, Lagos State Government has promised to improve the institution’s learning environment in line with the proposed upgrade.

“Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode said that he would provide a befitting 5,000-capacity auditorium estimated at N3.2 billion, an administration block that was to cost N1.9 billion in 2003, and students’ hostels,” he said.

The rector added that the governor promised to complete building the school’s sports ground.

“By January 2018, these projects will commence,” he said.

Sogunro called on students and staff of the institution to improve the quality of their research output, noting that the survival of any economy would depend on the quality of its human capital.

Mr Steven Omojafor, Chairman, STB McCann Advertising Company, and the guest speaker at the occasion, observed a decline in the number of advertising, communication and marketing agencies in the country.

“We have not been able to sustain our growth because many agencies are being short-changed by their clients who now run agencies, and many were not properly setup.

“We should be increasing and not decreasing,” he said.

Omajafor urged the students to be hard working and take advantage of the opportunities in the changing world of advertising, communication and marketing industry.

“Being the digital generation, you can turn things around because the current state of affairs in the industry cannot continue forever,” he said.

The Chairman, ACSPN, Prof. Lai Oso, blamed massive unemployment in the country on unpreparedness of graduates for the labour market.

Oso was represented by Mr Ayo Oluwatosin, Group Managing Director, Rosabel Group.

“The association was borne out of the fact that the typical Nigerian graduate is not industry-ready by the time he or she completes education; this is accountable for the massive unemployment,” he said. (NAN)

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