The National Board For Technical Education (NBTE) has appealed to the Federal Government to desist from converting the existing polytechnics into Universities.
The Executive Secretary of NBTE, Professor Idris Bugaje, made this appeal at a retreat for the chairmen of governing councils and principal officers of federal polytechnics, organised by the board, in collaboration with the Committee of Federal Polytechnic Rectors.
Speaking on the theme, ‘Improving Polytechnic Administration; The Role of Governing Council And Management,’ he lamented that Nigeria has over 200 universities and was still converting the few existing polytechnics.
He said, “If you convert a college of education into a university, you are upgrading them. If you convert a polytechnic, you are degrading that institution. So we need to stop this craze of converting polytechnics into universities.
“As we know, China converted 600 universities in 2017 into polytechnics because China knows the value of technical education and the value of skills because they want to be on top.
“If Nigeria wants to lead Africa and want to be among the top 20 countries in the next 20 to 30 years, we must change our attitude towards Technical and Vocational Education and Training.”
He further said the present state of Polytechnics in Nigeria was not encouraging, saying that all hands must be on deck to reposition the sector as quickly as possible.
“Without mincing words, the following are identified as key issues that are impeding the growth of Polytechnics in Nigeria; corrupt practices, poor corporate governance, governing Council and management power play, power tussle, conflict of interest etc, dearth of local and multinational manufacturing industries to employ TVET,” Bugaje said.