The National President of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, Prof. Chibuzo Asomugha, and Chairman, ASUP, Federal Polytechnic Offa, Dr Shola Ojeniyi, have urged the Federal Government to review the current state of Polytechnics in the country.
They made this known at the 81st National Executive Council meeting of ASUP in Offa, Kwara State.
According to Asomugha, “There is no understanding of what we really want polytechnic education to be. We have deviated from the original vision and there is no focus. There is hardly any technical intent in the delivery of polytechnic education and we must return to the basis.
“This dovetails into what happens in the wider economy, in the industries and private sector. There is no contact between the industries and the schools. We are just producing polytechnic graduates without being able to know where they will fit in.”
He also noted that president Buhari during his campaign promised to look into issues surrounding dichotomy between Higher National Diploma graduates and their B.Sc. Counterparts.
He also bemoaned the fact that the present structure makes it that candidates who seek for admission into polytechnics are those who are deemed not fit to gain admission into the university which is not supposed to be so.
There is paucity in funding which eventually is derived from the perception of polytechnic education in the minds of policy makers. When you don’t consider that a system is serious enough then you don’t give it serious consideration in fund.
“We tasked the past government to monitor its funding of the sector. Don’t just throw money in a system. With all the money that government is parading that it has thrown into the system, government has not gotten better result because of lack of proper monitoring.” He further stressed.
