The National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS) has issued a seven-day ultimatum to the National University Commission (NUC) to retract its statement on the Higher National Diploma (HND) top-up programme or face public embarrassment.
NAPS said it was sad to read a statement credited to the NUC that no university in the country has the mandate to offer a top-up programme to equate the HND to the BSc in the country.
The body, expressing its disappointment on the matter, maintained that the NUC lacks the mandate to regulate technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in Nigeria.
The National President of NAPS, Rilwan Opeyemi Munirudeen, appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to look into the bill passed by the 9th National Assembly on the Act of Dichotomy and Discrimination between the First Degree (B.S.C.) and the Higher National Diploma (HND), which did not receive assent from the previous administration.
Munirudeen called on President Tinubu to act effectively on the bill, stressing that the bill seeks to legislate the discrimination of polytechnic graduates from their university counterparts in employment and promotion in the workplace.
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A former NAPS Senate President, Salahudeen Lukman, in an assessment of the state of polytechnics in Nigeria on Thursday in Abuja, appealed to the university regulator to operate within its constitutional mandate and stop being a clog in the progress of polytechnic’s students and graduates.
According to Lukman, the body will not fail to picket the national headquarters of the NUC to cause public unrest should it fail to restrain its steps in holding HND on its top-up programme and retract its actions before the expiration of the seven-day ultimatum.
He said, “The NUC is becoming a clog in the wheel of progress for polytechnic students and graduates, and as graduates and undergraduates, we are concerned. That is why we are joining with the students of the polytechnic to say that if NUC refuses to withdraw that statement, MBT or any university does not have a mandate to offer a top-up programme.
“The Polytechnic students and the graduates will not hesitate to come and embarrass them in their office, because you can’t continue to hold all the entire Polytechnic graduates and students to ransom because of your greed and overbearing tendency. They have their mandate, and they should restrain themselves within it.
“They should not intervene in TVET; we are talking about TVET in polytechnic. They have no business. If they cannot respect themselves by facing what concerns them and living in our sector alone, we will not hesitate to come and embarrass them and let them know their limits. They can continue to be a threat to our progress and career advancement.”
