The National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS) has issued a seven day ultimatum to the National University Commission (NUC) to retract its statement on Higher National Diploma (HND) top up program or face public embarrassment.

Expressing worries about a statement credited to the NUC that no university in the country have the mandate to offer a top-up program to equate the HND to the BSc, NAPS argued that the NUC lacks the mandate to regulate Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Nigeria. in

Addressing the state of polytechnics in Nigeria on Thursday in Abuja, Salahudeen Lukman, a former NAPS Senate President, urged the university regulator to operate within its constitutional mandate and stop being a clog in the wheel of progress of polytechnic student and graduates.

Lukman said the body will not fail to picket the national headquarters of the NUC to cause public unrest should it fail to restrain it step in holding HND on top up program and retract its actions before the expiration of the seven day ultimatum.

“The NUC is becoming a clog in the wheel of progress of polytechnic student and graduate and as a graduate, undergraduate, we are concerned that is why we are joining with the students of the polytechnic that if NUC refuses to withdraw that statement, that MBT or any university does not have mandate to offer a top up program.

“The Polytechnic student and the graduates will not hesitate to come and embarrass them in their office, because you can’t continue to hold all the entire Polytechnic graduate and students to ransom because of your greed and over overbearing tendency. They have their mandate, and they should restrain themselves within it.

“They should not intervene in the TVET, we are talking about TVET in polytechnic they have no business. If they cannot respect themselves by facing what concerns them and live our sector alone, We will not hesitate to come and embarrass them and let them know their limits. They can continue to be a threat to our progress and career advancement.”

On his part, National President of NAPS, Rilwan Opeyemi Munirudeen, appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to look into the bill passed by the Ninth National Assembly on the Act of Dichotomy and discrimination between the first degree (B.S.C) and the higher National Diploma (HND) which was failed to sign by the previous administration.

Munirudeen enjoins Tinubu to act effectively on the bill, stressing that the bill seeks to legislate the discrimination of polytechnic graduates from their university counterparts in employment and promotion in the workplace. (The Guardian)