The Federal Government of Nigeria has directed polytechnics, monotechnics and other allied institutions to stop awarding degrees.
It gave the affected institutions four years to graduate the last set of students already admitted for such programmes.
The National Board for Technical Education conveyed the government’s decision to heads of the affected institutions in a circular marked TEB/PRO/E/12/Vol.11/132 dated December 1, 2022.
The copy of the document was signed by the board’s Director, Polytechnic Programmes Department, Ogoh Ngbede.
EduCeleb.com understands that these institutions don’t award degrees on their own, as they are usually affiliated with some university with which they have a binding agreements.
This trend has been seen by stakeholders as contributing to the dwindling proportion of enrollment into polytechics in the country.
Ngbede, in the circular, expressed the Federal Ministry of Education’s dismay at the increasing number of tertiary institutions in the country offering programmes for which they were not originally designed.
The circular read in part, “Polytechnics and other technical institutions in the country should immediately stop admitting students into degree programmes.
“Similarly, polytechnics and allied institutions awarding Nigerian Certificate in Education should restrict themselves to 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 the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics had raised concerns that allowing polytechnics to award degrees portends danger for technical education.
The union’s National President, Anderson Ezeibe, while speaking with EduCeleb.com on the Education Podcast recently had noted that such a situation negatively affected measures towards ending the degree- HND dichotomy and biases.
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