Why Nigeria should scrap Colleges of Education, Polytechnics

Read Time:3 Minute, 6 Second

A Nigerian lawmaker has given reasons why he thinks Nigerian colleges of education and polytechnics should be phased out soon from the nation’s educational system.
The Senate chief whip, Olusola Adeyeye, at an event organised by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, in Abuja said this is because, ”the educational structures that gave rise to the institutions such as ‘standard six, grade one, grade two and grade three’, had already been phased out.
Mr. Adeyeye said this on Tuesday during a JAMB event tagged, “Strategic planning on the conduct of the 2018 Unified Tertiary Matriculation.”
According to the senator, ”there is no serious future for a society that makes the weakest its teachers,” in a veiled reference to products from colleges of education and polytechnics.
“During admission process, the ‘best students’ go to the universities, second best students go to the polytechnics while ‘others’ go to colleges of education and such students are expected to be teachers and teach best students.
“I have my private fears. I dont believe God will solve Nigeria’s problem, we are to make it work. If you want to see the future of any society, visit their schools,” he said. He did not explain further.
The lawmaker may perhaps not be on the same page with the Nigerian government which in November last year said it had concluded plans to restructure polytechnics in Nigeria to focus on research and development of indigenous technology.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, had said this at the 17th convocation ceremony of Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, in Ogun State.
He explained that the focus of the government in strenthening the institutions would be largely on agriculture and alternative sources of energy.

He noted that the government would no longer tolerate the situation where technology – based institutions shifted their focus to courses in liberal arts.

Meanwhile, the registrar of the board, Ishaq Oloyede said the federal government has sanctioned 42 institutions that collected over N2000 for Post-UTME charges.
He also explained why the board pegged the fees at N2000.
“A lot of things such as infrastructure were put into consideration before the minister arrived at the N2000. For instance, it will cost University of Ibadan N92 to organise Post-UTME for candidates because it has the infrastructure but it will cost Federal University of Oye -Ekiti N1800 to organise the same examination for a candidate,” the registrar said.
The registrar said the minister asked all the institutions that charged more than N2000 to refund the cash to the candidates adding that the candidates, ”are reporting back to the board when they get the money.”
“In a case where they could not return the money to the candidates, the minister directed them (schools) to pay the money to a non-religious orphanage home,” he said.
He said the establishment of JAMB was not to deprive the institutions of their, ”right and responsibilities in the admission process.”
According to him, the board will now have less of malpractices by utilising technology in detecting such adding that, ”those who obstruct the normal way of doing things will be made to face the law in the 2018 UTME examination.”
Meanwhile, some of the participants made some recommendations to the board.
Joe Odumakin, president of Women Arise for Change Initiative and the Campaign for Democracy said the board should provide first-aid boxes and medical personnel in the CBT centres in order to assist the ailing candidates.

She also said the board should accredit media personnel for the UTME coverage adding that parents should be prohibited from the centres.

Also speaking, the vice president of Nigerian Academy of Letters, Francis Egbokhare said the board should create multimedia content on their website.