State polytechnics facing five problems – NBTE

The executive secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has explained the five key problems affecting standard in Nigerian polytechnics, especially those established by state governments.
The board’s Executive Secretary Masa’udu Kazaure stated the problems while speaking at a meeting in Kaduna with chairmen and rectors of state polytechnics on Wednesday.
Speaking about the issues affecting standard in Nigerian polytechnics, Kazaure said some of the institutions were running unaccredited courses; enrolling more than their capacity and have a serious funding gap.
The NBTE boss also added that the polytechnics have no proper statistics on their activities adding that the schools have unqualified staff.
Kazaure further said that records from the board’s quality assurance department indicated a worrisome level of continued existence of expired programmes in mostly state-owned polytechnics.
“This is a serious problem that if left unaddressed would greatly affect our standard.
“This problem is further compounded by the menace of over enrolment, driven solely by the desire to generate revenue.
“While there is the need to complement government subvention, education remains a social investment that is quality conscious.
“The board also observe with dismay, the trending practice of recruitment and promotion of unqualified staff especially in the academics in clear violation of prescribed rules,” he said.
However, the federal government recently announced that the Higher National Diploma, HND certificates by polytechnics would be scrapped.
The decision to scrap the higher diploma was reached in June at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.
The award of HND will, therefore, be limited to only the students that are currently admitted for the programmes in Polytechnics across the country