It is alleged that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) recently approved a comprehensive reform of Nigeria’s tertiary education system, scrapping the award of the Higher National Diploma (HND) by the nation’s polytechnics.
In effect, the award of the HND will be limited to only the students currently admitted for the various programmes.
Polytechnics under this new rule will become campuses of the proximate universities with the vice chancellors of those universities appointing provosts to the ratification of the universities councils. Polytechnics will be limited to award the Ordinary National Diploma (OND) while those desirous of further education will be awarded Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) by the proximate university.
To trigger this policy, Yaba College of Technology and Kaduna Polytechnic will henceforth be known as City Universities of Technology, Yaba and Kaduna, respectively. Similarly, the FEC has submitted two Executive bills to the National Assembly for enactment into law. Education being on the concurrent list, states may wish to consolidate their tertiary institutions.
The first Executive bill seeks to concretise the setting up of the two city universities while the second will approve the preparation and consolidation of all federal polytechnics and colleges of education as campuses of proximate universities.
Adamu Adamu, minister of education, told journalists that under the reform, the ministry would continue to license private polytechnics and colleges of education for the award of the OND and the National Certificate in Education (NCE) levels. “There will be no more award of HND. After we have exhausted the current students under the programme… This means that there will be no fresh admission for HND programmes,” he said.
