Convert universities to polytechnics – Kadpoly rector

To move Nigerian economy forward, the Rector suggests that there should for a single university, there should be five polytechnics At a time the government of Nigeria is upgrading some polytechnics to university status, Prof.
Idris Bugaje, the rector of Kaduna Polytechnic, one of the oldest polytechnics in Nigeria, has a different opinion.
Bugaje, while speaking with newsmen in Kaduna urged the federal government to follow the example recently showed by the Peoples Republic of China.
“China three months ago converted 160 universities to polytechnics so that they will provide the middle-level manpower to move the Chinese economy forward.
‘’But at the moment we have more universities than polytechnics, so we are doing it in the reverse order in this country.
“For every single university, there should be nothing less than five polytechnics so that we can support the engineers.
An engineer is trained to do design, but who implements the design and brings it  into reality? Who does the fabrication, commission and installation of every plant? Is it not the technologists? So, we need more technologist than engineers,’’ he said.
Bugaje also said he is not against the federal government’s move to turn its polytechnics to universities, but he would like Kaduna Polytechnic to maintain the tradition of awarding National Diploma (ND) and Higher national National Diploma (HND).
Recall that the federal government recently scrapped the award of Higher National Diploma (HND) certificates by Nigerian polytechnics.
The decision to scrap HND was reached on June 6, 2018, at the Federal Executive Council (FEC ) meeting.
The award of HND will, therefore, be limited to only the students that are currently admitted for programmes in polytechnics across the country.
Also, some of the programmes currently being run by the polytechnics that are not technology-based will also be scrapped.

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