The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has called on the Federal Government to upgrade all polytechnics in the country to universities of technology to end discrimination against technological education.
The YabaTech branch Chairman of ASUP, Mr. Adeyemi Aromolaran, who made the appeal on Wednesday, said that government’s discriminatory policies against polytechnics were retarding the development of technical education in Nigeria.
“We need to look at the British example of running educational programmes, because that is where Nigeria copied the polytechnic education system from.
“Britain had abolished polytechnics long time ago; all polytechnics have been turned to universities of technology in that country,” Aromolaran said.
He noted that admission figures into the nation’s polytechnics and colleges of education were dropping every year due to unfavourable government policies.
The ASUP official said that with the dichotomy between the polytechnic diploma and the university degree, no enlightened person would want his or her child to go to the polytechnic.
According to him, most of the youths are drifting toward acquiring the university education.
The ASUP chairman said that until all the unfriendly policies were abolished, the country would not have an effective polytechnic system that would be acceptable by all. (NAN)
