The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics has bemoaned the decay in the nation’s polytechnics, noting that the tertiary educational institution has stagnated since 1977 when the national policy on education was inaugurated.
The union said polytechnics should be able to award post-graduate degrees up to doctorate level as is done in foreign countries, adding that the institution had been de-marketed.
Speaking at a press conference as part of activities of a roundtable on the future of Nigeria’s polytechnic system in Abuja on Monday, the ASUP President, Mr Anderson Ezeibe, said the budget for the nation’s education sector was inadequate, noting that the $3.2bn national budget for education was less than the budgets of some American and German colleges.
Ezeibe noted that the polytechnics had continued to bear the burden of the ‘demeaning status of the Higher National Diploma,’ saying that its curriculum had continued to fall short of industry requirements.
