Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has called on the Federal Government to establish a polytechnic commission for a proper regulatory framework of the polytechnic system in Nigeria.
National president of ASUP, Anderson Ezeibe who made the call in Asaba, Delta State, said the polytechnic system is the only educational institution without a commission.
Speaking on the sidelines of the 16th National Delegates’ Conference of the union, Ezeibe said with a commission, the constant abuse of laws in the system would be addressed.
He said it was as a result of the non-existence of the commission that the Federal Government could afford to appoint unqualified persons as rectors of polytechnics across the land.
Lamenting the plethora of woes in the polytechnic sector, Ezeibe regretted what he described as deliberate actions of demarketing the sector with discriminatory practices, disrespect for extant laws, inadequate funding among others on the part of government.
He therefore urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the dichotomy bill seeking to abolish the discrimination between polytechnic and university graduates into law.
On funding, Ezeibe decried that in June, this year, the Federal Government approved a paltry N15 billion as revitalisation of infrastructure funds in lieu of the implementation of the Needs Assessment Report of 2014.
“But as we speak, six months down the line, not a penny has been released. If you get to the schools, you will discover that a lot of infrastructure are Tetfund sponsored.
“That is why we are talking about stopping the proliferation of polytechnics in Nigeria. If you are not ready to fund, don’t establish, you don’t establish a polytechnic just to attract fund from Tetfund in the name of contract.
“Establish a polytechnic with the mind to meet a mandate, the mind to meet the educational and technological needs of the people.
“In so many state-owned polytechnics, capital appropriation is zero, any single infrastructure there is sponsored by Tetfund. This is very wrong way to go,” he said.
Ezeibe said the Federal Government has continued to change the nomenclature of agreements since 2010 without the commitment to implement the terms of the agreement.
“In 2010 we signed an agreement, it was just called an agreement with government. In 2015/2016, it was changed to Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
“Now that we went on strike from April 6 to June 10, 2021, it was changed to Memorandum of Action. And all of this connote agreement but changing the names has not changed the attitude of government in implementing the agreement. That is where the challenge is.
“The latest one we signed, we said that we need to go back to the negotiation table to renegotiate the conditions of service of lecturers in ghe Nigerian polytechnic system.
“We are still on the same salary scale from 2010 till now. I can tell you that the salary of a chief lecturer at the bar was about N360,000 per month in 2010.
“The value of that money as we speak is not up to N80,000 a month for very obvious reasons – inflation, devaluation of the naira. The price monitoring index in the CBN website has gone as much as 35%,” Ezeibe added.
