The Higher National Diploma (HND) as a programme in the country’s education system would cease to exist in a matter of months, Chairman of the Presidential Technical Committee on Consolidation of Tertiary Institutions, Prof Mahmood Yakubu has said.
Addressing the management, staff and students of the Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), Lagos, yesterday, Yakubu said, "From the day the report (of the committee) is finally approved and the necessary changes in the law made, in the next few months, there will be no HND as a qprogramme anywhere. It will be abolished and replaced by B. Sc, B.Eng., and B. Tech. as the case may be."
But the National Diploma (ND) programmes will be retained "as a non-degree component of the university to continue to produce the critical middle level manpower that the country needs."
Describing HND as one of the sour points in polytechnic education, because employers of labour and universities refuse to rate it as equivalent to a university degree for the purpose of employment and admission to higher degrees respectively, "The consolidation of these institutions and the conversion of YABATECH and Kaduna Polytechnic into universities will solve the problem permanently."
He however explained that state and private proprietors of polytechnics and colleges of education reserved the right to continue to run their programmes the way they choose.
Although they have examples in the Ogun State-owned Tai Solarin College of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State, now Tai Solarin University of Education and The Polytechnic, Calabar, now Cross River State University of Technology (CRUTECH). Yakubu stressed that the Committee was not at YABATECH to determine whether the college was fit to be a university or not.
That hurdle has been crossed as the Federal Government has approved the upgrading of the college and the Kaduna Polytechnic to universities, while the remaining 17 Federal Polytechnics and 21 Federal Colleges of Education in the country are to be consolidated with their proximate and contiguous universities.
The committee visited the college, he said, to interact with the management, staff and students to be able to make notes and advise government properly on what is on ground and what needs to be done and added to ensure a smooth take-off of the institution.
The Committee appointed on Tuesday, November 7, last year is to submit its report at the end of the month.
Responding, the Rector of YABATECH, Mr. Olubunmi Owoso described the transformation of the two polytechnics into universities as "a master stroke in the reform agenda."
A requested that the first tertiary institution in the country be renamed ‘City University, Yaba’ and not the ‘City University of Lagos’ that was announced when the proposal was first made.
advertisement
advertisement
