Polytechnics, monotechnics, and other such schools have been ordered by the Federal Government to discontinue granting degrees.
The National Board for Technical Education (NABTE) has issued a circular with the heading TEB/PRO/E/12/Vol.11/132 on December 1, 2022, addressing it to the heads of the institutions in question.
The directives was contained in a letter which was issued, on Tuesday, and signed by the Director of the board’s Polytechnic Programmes Department, Ogoh Ngbede.
Ngbede voiced the dismay of the Federal Ministry of Education at the growing number of tertiary institutions in the nation offering programmes for which they were not initially intended in the circular.
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However, he said that the government had given the impacted schools four years to graduate the most recent group of pupils who had been accepted for such programmes.
A portion of the memo stated, “Polytechnics and other technical institutions in the nation should immediately cease admitting students into degree programmes.
The same goes for polytechnics and related institutions that grant Nigerian Certificates in Education; they should only offer technical courses.
“However, already admitted undergraduates for these programmes should be allowed to round up the programmes into which they are already admitted.
“Institutions have been given a period of four years (up to 2026) to graduate their last set of students for such programmes.”
Recall that over the years, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics has urged the government to permit polytechnics to confer degrees.
The awarding of degrees by polytechnics, according to the union’s national president Anderson Ezeibe, would put an end to the current division.
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According to him, the age-old dichotomy has made HND less appealing to Nigerian adolescents than it once was.
“Policymakers have made it a rule that once an individual has an HND, he cannot attain the peak of his/her career, then why are they continuing to force it on people, why don’t they phase it out and replace it with Bachelor of Technology?”
He asserts that Nigeria’s polytechnic system has the necessary infrastructure and personnel resources to grant Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate degrees in technology.
Director of Programmes at Reform Education Nigeria, Ayodamola Oluwatoyin, supported the government’s choice in a conversation with our correspondent, on Tuesday.
“It is a very good initiative. Universities and polytechnics exist for different reasons. While it is largely believed that universities focus on theories, polytechnics focus on practical ones. So why should one want to take over the duty of another?
“However, it is worthy of note to remind the government about to promise to eliminate the dichotomy between degrees and Higher National Diplomas. We need to understand that the two awards serve different purposes hence, one should not be seen as lower than the other.”
