We teach students to convert waste to wealth –Lecturer

Aliyu Mohammed Bisalla is the acting Head of Department (HOD) and lecturer at the Department of Arts and Industrial Design, Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa.  He teaches Painting and Drawing.  In a chat with UJI ABDULLAHI ILIYASU during the School of Applied Sciences Annual Exhibition Week which held at the secretariat of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) of the institution recently, he talks about the significance of the exhibition and the indispensability of polytechnic education to Nigeria’s industrial development.

What is the significance of the annual exhibition you are observing today?

We are showcasing the work of arts and industrial design. The essence of this show is to expose what we are teaching our students in terms of creativity. These creativities are geared towards self-reliance for our students. They became job providers instead of job seekers after graduation. This is in line with the Polytechnic Act that requires technical and vocational education. What you can see here were wastes that had been converted to wealth. Some of the artworks you see here are paintings, drawings and graphics. We created them with the scraps obtained within our environment so that we wouldn’t spend much money in order to produce them. As you can see we are adding more value to education towards making our students self-dependent just as I told you earlier. Our students can use the creativity they learn here to turn around their fortune after graduation. Instead of waiting for years to get government job, they can manipulate available materials in their environment to create wealth. In the department we train students to become painters, graphic artists, sculptors, textile and basic designers.

Were the work of arts displayed here made by you or your students?

Most of the works you are seeing here were done by my students. The only ones I did myself are the framed paintings. Some of the works are projects of our final-year students while some are class works or assignments given to them.

Do you enjoy the sponsorship of any government agency like TETFund or the exhibition is purely your school affairs?

We are not being sponsored by any government agency or nongovernmental organisation (NGO). This is purely our work by ourselves. The works we brought out for the exhibition are just a small part of what we have.

Why is Nigeria so anxious about polytechnic education? Can you advise the government on that?

Most of our industries need manpower and it is the polytechnic graduates that were trained from school that will able to provide the technical manpower needed in the nation’s industrial sector. This is why I feel that the polytechnic education is very important and indispensable in the Nigeria’s education sector. We need technical education to revive our dying industries and advance our economy as a whole. Therefore, the importance of polytechnic education cannot be overemphasised. The university education has its own sphere of importance; they are usually theoretical in nature while polytechnics provide practical experiences in schools which could be used for economic and technological development. Our courses here are 90 per cent practical.

Many stakeholders in the sector are claiming that that the standard of education has fallen.  How true are they?

Yes. I agree with that notion. The fallen educational standard was occasioned by some factors such as corruption and loss of family values. Corruption takes what belongs to the larger society to the benefit of a few. The money meant for classrooms, welfare of teachers or teaching aids and other cognate subventions in schools are cornered to private property. Also parents no longer look after their children. Nowadays children spend more time on social media than on their studies. Parents no longer care about their children’s studies. Their concern is that they must pass their examinations, thus contributing to examination malpractice in schools. Many students don’t take their education serious because they believe that they can always get what they want through their parents. Also the government and all stakeholders’ approaches to education in the country are very discouraging. Because the money appropriated in education budgets are hijacked to private use, most facilities that will give education its quality nature and standard are not there. Most of the available facilities in the labs are obsolete and the attempts to replace them have become a mirage. Government needs to stand firm in order to revive the sector.

Do you think the advancement in information technology is contributing to the fall in education?

Technology is also contributing to the decline in education. Information and communication technology (ICT) facilities today have created social media where students engage themselves in and spent all their valuable time instead of reading their books. For instance, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and what have you. I think this is where we have the negative impact of technology affecting our life

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