Are there no other problems apart from those you mentioned?

You see, it's a question of policy and its implementation and every other thing will fall into place. In the seventies, university, polytechnic, secondary, primary education was sound. The inspectorate divisions, the ministries of education at the state level were very sound and well equipped. Many of these schools were owned by the missions, and they knew that they were competing with other missions. If their products were inferior, people would gravitate towards other areas; if their students were poor, the ministry of education through the inspectorate of education would close them.

Today, all the schools are owned by government and the government runs the ministry of education, and the government knows that they have not done what they are supposed to do; they can not even empower the inspectorate of education to go and close schools that are weak because of the government's inability to fund and support education. It is a terrible thing. And when I talk of government, I mean at all levels - local, state and federal.

If they do what they are supposed to do, if quality control is put in place and functional, as is the case with NAFDAC and Standards Organization, everything about education will fall into place; government will know that if this school must continue to exist, it must meet this minimum standard, it must be given this level of funding, and if it needs this level of fund, the needs of the institution will be met. Government is the greatest enemy of educational development in Nigeria.

A lot has been said about the issue of abolishing the HND programme and merging of polytechnics with universities in recent times. What is the true situation of things?

I have told you that our government, particularly at the federal level, is always engaging in policy sommersault. Somebody read accountancy and she was in the presidency and was doing very well especially in the implementation of the policy of "due process." Because she did very well, she was redeployed to the Ministry of Solid Minerals to go and sanitize solid materials but she found that the minerals were not like balancing books of account. She spent all the time there fumbling and wobbling, producing little results. Government had to remove her from solid minerals. Not because she lacked the will, but because she was like a round peg in a square hole. Also she had just one year in the Ministry of Education, and she thought that she could undo in that one year what had been going on in the past 100 years in that sector.
She thought that she could change the entire education system from primary to tertiary when she had no training in educational administration or curriculum development. She was not what you could call an expert in education discipline. Even if she was one, if you were going do a very prominent and enduring revolution, it had to be borne out of a well thought out and well-carried out research and it had to be spread over a period of time. Within the little time she spent in the ministry, she thought that she could turn the education sector around like she turned around "due process". She failed to realize that in attempting what she did, she had slighted people who are experts in education administration, who have lived through it, have practised it and have attained the rank of professor.
She was, therefore, working in a terrain that was not familiar to her and was, therefore, grossly incompetent. What was the problem with polytechnic education? What was her reason for wanting to merge polytechnics with universities? Simple that there was discrimination between polytechnic graduates and university graduates, and you think that by merging you have solved the problem. Why was there discrimination in the first place? Was the discrimination justified? Go to the oil companies today and you will find out that many of the people doing underwater welding and excavation and all that kind of thing are graduates of the polytechnic system. The problem of discrimination of polytechnic graduates is a problem that government itself encouraged.Nigeria: 'Govt is Killing Technological Education in Nigeria'

Take the banks that should employ a good number of the polytechnic graduates, they don't want to employ. Instead they do contract service and exploit the staff, and the government is quiet about it. The economy has been allowed to rot, and the production of manpower from every field is far more than the economy can carry.
So you see a situation where a graduate of chemistry cannot be employed to teach chemistry in the secondary school, for instance, and I am not talking about HND, but M.Sc, B.Sc, graduates roaming the streets, not because there are no jobs but because government doesn't want to employ. If you merge universities with polytechnics, you will still produce the same quantity of manpower that will still not be engaged. That's one.

Secondly, you are forcing the universities to absorb students that they themselves are not prepared for. They will not even produce better graduates now. Look at the other blunder - Alvan Ikoku College of Education Owerri merged with FederalUniversity of Technology, Owerri.
What kind of marriage is that? You know Alvan Ikoku College of Education is one of the greatest colleges of education in the country. When you merge them, how will the engineers of FUTO cope with the educationists of Alvan? You don't solve a problem by multiplying the problem. We have started admitting HND students for a new session and that is by the approval of the Federal Government. Thank God Obiageli has left.
I believe that Yar'dua will be cautious in doing a thorough job. I don't imagine merging universities with polytechnics will solve the problem. I think the solution will be the reinforcement of polytechnic education with the right mix of equipment and funding; and the same thing for the universities. Also I think that the economic policies of government should be positive. When the economy picks up and the industries have higher capacity utilization, manpower will be drawn to where it is needed and everybody will play the role that he or she is supposed to play. The mission statement for polytechnics is different from that of universities.

There is also the controversy surrounding the ranking of university and polytechnic lecturers. Do you think that, for instance, the polytechnic chief lecturer is equal in academic standing to the associate professor in the university?
That's a question and you will expect that as a staff of the polytechnic, I will take sides. Let me tell you, promotion in the universities is very rigorous, much more rigorous than what is obtainable in the polytechnics. They don't cut corners and it is not something that started today. Before you become a senior lecturer, for instance, you would have published, you would have taught, you would have attained a certain level of academic advancement.
Until recently, polytechnics were just satisfied with promoting you if you had taught for a given number of years. Actually, the first generation of polytechnic chief lecturers were not people who attained that rank based on their intellectual productivity. In those days of Biafra, most of the people that fabricated the bombs and other lethal weapons of warfare were those in the polytechnic system, who were either lecturers or instructors.
Today there has been an attempt to marry practicality with research and the polytechnics are beginning to respond to this new mandate. I am not one of people that will say let there be a comparison, it's like comparing a man and a woman. It's like asking us, the permanent secretary and the professor, who is superior? It is not a question of superiority. It's like asking me whether a barber is as important as a tailor.
What we should be interested in is if the man who has been assigned to the polytechnic environment to produce is producing, if he is producing, there is no reason on earth why his promotion should be stopped at any point. To get into the polytechnic system, sometimes you need a Ph.D, some of the people who are permanent secretaries are there with only first degree, some with second class lower, third class and even pass. We are supposed to give quality service within the confines of our mandate and I think we are doing just that.

Sir Eric Richardson Championing the cause of polytechnic education

Terence Burlin
Tuesday August 15, 2006
The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk>
Sir Eric Richardson, who has died aged 101, was an exponent of polytechnic education who headed three institutions that have developed into universities - Salford, City and Westminster - and was a leader of 20th-century evangelical Christianity.
In 1957, he became head of the Regent Street Polytechnic, which since 1881 had brought education plus sport, social and spiritual activity to the less privileged of London, and now sought to cater for every need, whatever the level. It was the only UK institution embracing a school and a vast range of further education courses, as well as undergraduate, postgraduate and research work, but this was to count against it.
Although the volume of advanced work was greater than in many other similar places, the polytechnic was not designated as a college of advanced technology because of the non-advanced work, and so was not eligible for transfer to the university sector when that possibility arose in 1964. But Richardson grasped the nettle. Within three months he went to the Ministry of Education with a plan for expansion, only to be told to reduce his student intake, as provision was to be moved away from central London. He completely ignored this dictate.
By 1964, 70% of the polytechnic's work was advanced, and a few years later virtually all of it was. Subsequently, the Inner London Education Authority accepted Richardson's proposals, and a massive building programme commenced in 1966 to provide two new colleges - one to serve the professions of the construction industry, the other for engineering and science - plus a school of management studies and a tower block for student residences.
The polytechnic was ready for the next phase in the expansion of higher education, namely the polytechnics. Ironically, the government had chosen for its policy the very name of the institution which had brought the word "polytechnic" into English, but in 1969 the governors of the day were compelled to rename it the Polytechnic of Central London, with Richardson as its first director. His tenure did not see it become a university, but he had focused its work on higher education while retaining its commitment to less privileged Londoners. When, in 1992, the next policy shift permitted, the Polytechnic of Central London was easily launched as the University of Westminster.
Born in Woodchurch, Birkenhead, Richardson, barely breathing and feeding badly, looked set to follow a brother who had died at seven months. In desperation, his mother took him to Rhyl, north Wales, where within weeks he was transformed and equipped with a constitution that was to last for a century. He attended Birkenhead higher elementary school and became a Methodist Sunday schoolteacher; he remained a devout Christian all his life.
While working as an apprentice in Liverpool, he attended evening classes at Birkenhead Technical College and Liverpool Technical College, obtaining his ONC, HNC and matriculation. With a Birkenhead scholarship and support from local Methodists, he was able both to enter Liverpool University and continue to support his family: he took a first-class BEng degree in 1931 and a PhD in 1933. His academic career began at Hull Municipal College, as chief lecturer (1933-37) and head of electrical engineering (1937-41). He moved to be principal of Oldham Municipal Tech-nical College (1942-44) and of the Royal Technical College Salford, now Salford University (1944-47).
Richardson was then invited to became principal of what was then Northampton Polytechnic, so named from its location in Northampton Square, London EC1, and is now City University. He had married his wife May in 1941, and part of the motivation for moving to the capital was access to Great Ormond Street children's hospital for their daughter Sheila, who sadly died while under treatment. A decade later he took up the challenge of Regent Street.
Richardson held many professional offices, becoming president of the Association of Principals of Technical Institutions in 1962, the year he was made a CBE. He was particularly amused by his appointment as chairman of the General Optical Council; they wanted to avoid anyone with specialist knowledge. He served for 21 years on the advisory committee on colonial colleges of arts, science and technology - he was particularly associated with the development of higher education in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya - and was knighted in 1967.
His Christian commitment mirrored his professional life, in Africa as chairman of the African Evangelical Fellowship (1950-70), and in visiting hospitals and homes of the Leprosy Mission, of which he was a council member from 1970 and subsequently chairman (1974-84). His involvement with youth was reflected in posts with the National Young Life Campaign, the Crusaders Union and the University and Colleges Christian Fellowship. He was a trustee from 1966 of the Evangelical Trust and its chairman from 1989 to 1999. For the London School of Theology, he acted as chairman (1970-77) and president (1978-90). He leaves May and his three surviving children, David, Rosalyn and Anne.
· John Eric Richardson, electrical engineer, academic and administrator, born June 30 1905; died July 20 2006

our government are not serious, so don't rely on them.

You see he is happy just because his polytechnic will named inferior city university.

They should just give value to HND that is all we ask for.

Polytechnic is polytechnic
university to university.

U dey mnd am?

Let dem make HND attractive as the Degree that's all.

What are they up to on this HND slavery?

Hnd-holder:

What are they up to on this HND slavery?

We should be asking you. Have you heard anything lately about HND in Nigeria??

Do you know when stake holders will come? Them say they are waiting for stake holders to discuss it. So suspended till then.
Who is this stake holder?

can you help me for my admission in kwara poly,

Can u give your details?

@HND-holder
polytechnic education is still needed in nigeria. Can any country grow technologically without technicians and technologists?? Or you think it is university graduates that made Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea to develop technologically??

The mentality of NIGERIAN Allah dey

.

HND IS OUT DATED

NATE as the only HND holders association is happy that government is borrow a leaf from a country like Japan whose philosophy and objective of education is, 'aggressive survival technology and effective use of adapted technology', that is useful to humanity.

Developed countries of the world do not believe in this old style of middle level slaves. Applied courses in Canada and USA are never called middle level. The practice whereby the polytechnics award HND is outdated in Africa; South Africa change from HND to B.Tech in 1996 and Ghana in 2005, and no British colonized African countries offer HND again.

Some Nigerian ministers and professors obtained their degrees from British polytechnic.

Tertiary institutions abroad afford HND holders from this country admission for post-graduate studies without any discrimination. The middle level disaster was inherited from the British which computer world has eliminated.

The British government scrapped HND education years back, because the purpose was defeated and replaced with degrees, old ideas of master and slave drags British back ward, USA today is helping them to put the British ideas on wheel.

Nigeria cannot afford to remain the only country in Africa with HND and still looking for paid employment that requires middle level celebration of passing papers around the offices.

Nigeria wants to produce those that can use their hands. And be able to work in another country, Nigeria need to grow technologically and be able to work elsewhere with globally acceptable certificate, HND is never known in USA Or Canada.

Right now some Federal Ministries and Parastatals are gathering data for the next promotion exercise but the HND holders on SGL 14 are completely excluded. We do not know why Middle level slaves are still wanted when those in the streets with HND are not getting jobs.

It has been a long drawn battle from NATE because of the manner of job placement, promotion prospects and the practice of placing university degree graduates over and above HND holders from university or polytechnic even with additional qualification. This new life for HND holders, took many unawares.

We really support the effort of the government for phasing out the HND from our education.

Over the years, there has been a lot of segregation in the labour market between polytechnic HND and university graduates. (Note that the polytechnic middle level manpower stops at ND, and Universities too had some HND courses apart from Bsc, Msc and PhD) why should the polytechnic HND graduates play second fiddle to the university degree graduates? The HND has always been here with us, what has been the contribution of those falling in love with it now, to reduce the stress of HND holders? Although the change has not gone down well to some as they still argued that the colleges were established to provide mid-level manpower for the country.

Now that government has given approval for polytechnics and colleges of technology to award degrees they should support the move .

Yakubu (NBTE boss) had urged all the heads of polytechnics and colleges of technology to prepare ground and brace up to the challenges of awarding Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech) in their institutions as approved by the government. Inside the same government instrument that approved the award of degrees by the polytechnics, made HND to be equal to a degree, removing the ceiling on the salary grade level and rank that holders of HND could attain in the public service, and made the Ordinary National Diploma (OND) the new minimum entry point into the service.

Nevertheless, many polytechnics and colleges of technology have initiated a flurry of activities to accommodate the directive from the Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) Dr. Nuru Yakubu.

NATE has advocated for the parity of the degree certificate and the Higher National Diploma, and also for the approval to award degrees. We in NATE are so grateful to the government that the struggle for award of degrees by the polytechnics has finally been granted; we are in hurry to see the implementation of the federal government's good gesture towards the polytechnics.