The Executive Secretary of the National Board For Technical Education, Professor Idris Bugaje, on Tuesday decried the rate at which the government was converting the existing polytechnics into Universities.
He stated this 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.”
Credit: Punch Newspaper
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