Educator opposes polytechnics-to-universities ‘craze’

The executive secretary of the National Board for Technical Education in Nigeria, Professor Idris Bugaje, has condemned the craze of converting polytechnics to universities, saying such a step is usually taken in ignorance of what the real trend in technical and vocational education is, writes Adesina Wahab for Vanguard.

He stated this during a workshop titled “Improving skills development in Nigerian Polytechnics for economic growth, entrepreneurship and social inclusion” organised by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund in Lagos.

“While countries like China and Germany are giving priority to technical and vocational education and with China even converting universities to polytechnics because they know that is the future, we are now in the craze of turning our polytechnics to universities here. We are having a dearth of technicians while we are heading for a glut of university graduates.”
Full report on the Vanguard site