Still on Polytechnics- Other bias meted out to them include inequality in salary Grade Level (HND – GL 07 & BSc – GL 08), security personnel – Bsc (Commissioned), HND (Non-commissioned), promotion; HND (maximum of GL 12), while BSc (Unlimited), banks and other financial institutions treat HND holders like outcasts while BSc holders are employed as administrative staff, as HND holders are confined within the executive cadre. Ironically, the frustration had led not a few into all kinds of unemployment, social vices, criminality, non-chalant attitude and complete frustration by those unfortunate young men and women who are groomed to be technically-versatile products, self-employed and job-creators. What we should do is to strengthen our polytechnics, realising that although the university strives to impart a particular kind of education by teaching ‘why things work’, the polytechnic on the other hand teaches ‘how things work’ thus, they complement each other. Therefore, non-technical courses that are irrelevant to the core mandates of the institutions should be limited to the barest minimum in the polytechnics to allow them maximize their capacity to train technicians, technologists and middle-level managers. Over the years, the nation has been experiencing imbalances and disconnect between the actual manpower needs of the economy and the educational system, resulting in dire structural imbalances that are inimical to national development. As I have observed in an essay,Why HND Should Not Be Scrapped, “The elite should be blamed for policy failures because as policies are being formulated, they also buildlandmines in order to take the advantage of such loopholes for their selfish interest when eventually the policies fail” (TheVanguard, 27/06/2008, page18). The nation now needs well-orchestrated objectives that will harness its many talentedmanpower to produce the synergy that will drive it to development that is not made possible under the present arrangement. The bitter truth is that inasmuch as we have university graduates who are better than polytechnic graduates, there are also polytechnic graduates who are also far better than the university graduates. So, polytechnic graduates are not mentally inferior in anyway. And to the UK example, we should not kill our polytechnics. The needs and aspirations of the nations may be similar but the structure and the peculiarities of the two societies completely differ. The National Board for Technical Education, which supervises these institutions that currently stand at 110 for tertiary technical institutions and 159 technical colleges, should urgently review the curricula of polytechnics to make them go in tandem with modern day reality. It should be appreciated that the real sector of the economy is the engine room for attaining envisaged development, hence a well-managed economic system requires technical hands that propel the industries to run to optimal capacity. Without delay, government should pay less attention to party politics and end the ongoing strike by embarking on dialogue with the angry workers. The workers too should be responsive, bearing in mind that all their demands may not be met at a go. This is the right thing to do. Mr. ADEWALE KUPOLUYI, wrote from Federal University of Agric., Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 18:02:33 +0000
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