Former students of polytechnics across Nigeria on Thursday called on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to sign the Higher National Diploma/Bachelor of Science dichotomy Act before him to ensure the sustainability and growth of technological education.

The former students, under the aegis of the Forum of Nigeria Polytechnics Alumni Association, which lamented that the HND/BSc dichotomy was doing great harm, said giving assent to the Act by the president would calm frayed nerves and renew hopes for millions of polytechnic graduates in the country.

The FONPAA Chairman, Mr Obialor Ibebulke, and Secretary, Goke Ishola, also called on the Federal Government to, as a matter of necessity, upgrade Nigerian polytechnics to degree-awarding institutions “for increased academic prowess, as is the norm in advanced climes, as well as to advance the frontiers of technological education.”

“Ibebulke and Ishola, along with other members of the executive, who spoke in a communiqué at the end of a two-day Executive Committee meeting held at the Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti, also bemoaned the poor funding of the polytechnics in Nigeria.

They appealed to governments for “increased funding for Nigerian polytechnics to further aid their academics and improve their overall sundry research works.”
The forum also renewed its call “for the establishment of the Nigeria Polytechnic Commission, a body which will solely be for the administration of polytechnics, like the National Universities Commission.”

The National President of the FPA Alumni Association, Abiodun Oyedokun, called on governments to help the polytechnics with the provision of facilities and to also aid the system so that lecturers would have access to modern equipment and technology.