HND Certificate: An Embarrassment?

God help Nigeria!

BA Theology working in accounts department and HND holder in Accountancy with ICAN can not get job simply because he/she own HND.
HND banking and finance sent off from  a BANK and Bsc Biology Education Heads account department. All for the embarrassment of HND certificate. Is that the reason while I should go to obtain degree?  In this "spoil System"? More degree holders are equally jobless but that is referred to as unemployment. A university degree holder in Engineering working in the bank is it not unemployment? A Lawyer teaching in the secondary school must be more embarrassed than an HND holder.

HND enginering working in an Engineering company will be happy more than the Fully embarrassed , devalued BEng.
Tell him to go to college of education we will not like to see such face in COREN. What a useless certificate now, BEng in other part of the world will be involved in equipment development. this one here  na teacher. Let me ask you is he a teacher in Nursery and pry school?

Everyone in the society now has a warped view of the issue.Even the recent pronouncement that ceilling will not be placed on HND holders any longer is like a policy summersault.Government is talking of recruitment of fresh graduates to restructure the civil service but they make it in such a way that BSC holders stand a better chance of being employed.The last NYSC recruitment is a case in point

What I believe in is adding value to oneself as an HND holder.They said Polys will soon start running like unis but when?When will the proffs see the reason to come to Poly sytem?
There's a point to which a person can brand himself so much so that the employers will be left with no choice but to call him for a test be he an HND or BSC holder.

But sha it's painful.A friend told me recently(we finished  Youth Service together this February) that he will now start pursuing a degree course because of the said discrimination.
  Take care guys

We have said it before that people like that guy are the problems polytechnic graduates have.

That is not the exact figure, it is slightly more than that. That is my starting salary (plus allowance excluding tax). I just graduated. 

Our head office is in the west too although my job is intercontinental in nature. I am sorry to say but I don't believe in luck rather I am a beneficiary of the extravagant grace of God (Roman9:15 &16 ; Eccl 9:11).


P.S,
If you must think that I used connection, you wouldn't be wrong just that the only connection I used and still use is that of my elder brother whose name is JESUS CHRIST.

Let government scrap polytechnic education in nigeria and close down all polytechnics so that people will not waste their precious time going there in the 1st place.

A perspective on the discrimination against Nigerian HND graduates 

CHRISTIAN DIMKPA

Jena, Germany

 

cdimkpa@ice.mpg.de

 

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

 

At present, the average Nigerian graduate, be they of the university or the polytechnic hue, is largely poorly trained and therefore ill-equipped to face life’s dynamic realities. On a visit to Nigeria last summer, one of my former lecturers at the Michael Okpara College of Agriculture (MOCA), Owerri, Imo State, during a discussion, concluded that the last set of motivated and serious students of his college graduated in 1998. I agreed with him not because I was of that set but because my HND research project attests to that. However, I remembered that this same lecturer, like several of his peers, rather than engage the students in rigorous academic work, sold plagiarised handouts to us like no man’s business.

 

This brings me to the recent directive from President Olusegun Obasanjo aimed at ending the discrimination between HND and BSc graduates. Whether employers of labour are heeding this directive or not is another story. But, tell me, what is there to discriminate against when both qualifications (as obtained from Nigeria in recent times) reek of mediocrity? The truth is, like his BSc counterpart, the present Nigerian HND graduate is a lazy, dependent fellow who would not take his destiny in his hands. Many students attend polytechnics for several reasons. For me and for many National Diploma (ND) students, being from just an average-resource family, undertaking an ND program was a form of security, since the later is of shorter duration, and there is no guaranteed funding for the longer BSc program. It was reasoned that in the event of loss of sponsorship (from death or loss of job by the sponsor), one can pause after the ND, work for a while with that intermediate certificate, and then continue with higher studies from savings made. For the much longer BSc program, loss of sponsorship midway could see the individual involved back to school certificate level. Would you blame anyone for reasoning this way? I wouldn't, not with poverty so palpable in Nigeria.

 

Although I was fully aware of the discriminatory phenomenon, I did not let it be a roadblock to my ambition. If you will permit, a brief delve into my career might help to buttress this point. I used to hold (of course, I still hold) an ND and a HND in Crop Production, both from relatively non-renown higher institutions in Nigeria. However, it is instructive that today I am pursuing a PhD program at one of the prestigious Max Planck institutes in Germany (best research institute in Europe and eight best globally), and this is in an innovative field of study that, perhaps, may never be conducted in any Nigerian university many years from now. This is after obtaining an International MSc degree in Belgium from a university that is listed among the first 300 globally. Note that no Nigerian university is in the first 500. In the newspaper recently, one Nigerian stakeholder lamented that even if the ranking is extended to the first 5000 best universities, Nigerian universities would still not make the list.

 

After my HND studies in 1998, I worked with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan, as a Research Assistant. During the interview for that position, several BSc graduate applicants from ‘well-known’ universities such as UI, UniLag, OAU-Ile Ife, among others, were interviewed as well, but the big university names associated with those candidates did not save them from relegation, as footballers are wont to say. What I am emphasising here is that it is the intellectual quality of the individual, not the institution attended, that often matters. If you know IITA, then you will agree with me that when it comes to staff recruitment, personal merit is the watchword, not merely possessing a HND or BSc degree.

 

Afterwards, I applied for graduate studies at the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta (UNAAB). Surprisingly or not, I was not considered suitable for admission either because of my HND (even at upper credit level), or because I do not come from that catchment area (remember the federal character scourge in Nigeria). But that is by the way. Nevertheless, I did not relent in my desire to attain the highest academic level possible, so that in spite of possessing a HND and the unexplained rejection by UNAAB, and thanks to hundreds of Internet hours, I soon obtained a full scholarship from the Belgian inter-university council (www.vlir.be) in 2003, to study Molecular Biology (Plant Biotechnology) in that country.

 

When I arrived in Belgium for the English-taught MSc program, I found out that of the 241 Nigerians who applied for scholarship for the course, I was the only one admitted. Remember, I held a ‘less worthy’ HND, not the ‘almighty’ BSc. The curious mind that I am, I inquired more about the unsuccessful Nigerian applicants and behold, they were mostly university graduates (again from UI, UniLag, OAU, UNN, UniPort, etc). To crown the ‘HND victory,’ two other students of The Polytechnic Ibadan were also admitted but for different MSc courses. That polytechnic offers only HND and not BSc programs. The three of us  had a good laugh, as they had also been discriminated against earlier. Such is the power of the individual merit.

 

I have since acquitted myself very well in the Belgian MSc program; hence I was admitted, again on full fellowship, to one of the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) of the Max Planck society in Germany (see http://www.mpg.de/english , and also http://www.ice.mpg.de),to study beneficial plant-microbe interaction using modern biotechniques, including proteomics and metabolomics. The other Nigerian scholars formerly holding HNDs have since undertaken different higher pursuits here in Europe. Several other such examples abound of successes with HND certificates in and out of Nigeria.

 

This narrative does not by any means attempt to denigrate Nigerian BSc graduates or the universities from which they graduated; millions of excellent Nigerians, home and abroad have passed through these institutions. Rather, the piece attempts to deemphasise the entrenched segregation. Emphasis should be placed more on what an individual graduate made of himself from the university or polytechnic. There is even a dichotomy between federal and state university graduates. Wonders shall never end in Nigeria! From these experiences, it can be seen that the senseless HND-BSc dichotomy should have no place in the mind of any serious-minded Nigerian graduate. After all, the HND is fully recognised in the UK and has several equivalents in other European countries. What then is all the fuss about it in Nigeria? My little advice to the Nigerian HND holder who has suffered this discrimination, and who feels qualified enough for certain positions denied him or her  is this: Do not let man-made barriers block your ambition, except you have none. Take a cue from others; take time off to do meaningful Internet browsing, not using the Internet for 419 and other such negative activities. In no time, you too can obtain a scholarship to a much better-rated institution of higher learning abroad. By so doing you would have catapulted yourself well beyond any possible academic discrimination if you choose to return to Nigeria to work.

 

 ****

Christian Dimkpa, a PhD fellow of the International Max Planck Research School, writes from Jena, Germany (cdimkpa@ice.mpg.de)
 
www.kwenu.com: Simply surprise yourself yonder!
 

i say amen to your prayers.

Obasanjo probably went to a military academy.

@Hnd holder

Zebu is not sure, hence probably, if you are sure, tell us, is it Yaba tech or Military school as proposed here?

my brother how him dey rule the country??

Baba did military engineering. Is he a member of COREN and NSE?? What kind of engineering work do dey do in the army sef; is it vehicle and gun repairs and maintenance??

 :(To all HND holders like me, I have this saying "If God be for us, who can be against us". It is ear/eye sour that such wide disscrimination exist between a  Bsc and HND holder. The question that should be on our lips is that "is it all those in the government parastatals are Bsc holders". Infact many things are wrong in this country and not leaving out the educational sector. Our country is blessed but the people herein are the problem. I foresee a situation whereby all the Polythenics will seize to be in existence in the nearest future if the situation is not checked. There are self centered people up there in the place of authority who should fight for the masses but for where, all they know is their pocket. A revolution is coming to Nigeria soon and thing will change for better. To all HND holders I say WEEP NO MORE. Shallom