Nigerian Polytechnics fail to meet up human resource demand

Nigerian technology-oriented institutions are faced with a mandate of meeting up to the human resources demands of this age of technological expansion; World Economies are increasingly dependent on technological inputs to maximize productivity. How can we maximise productivity as a country without looking into our technical institutions?

The personal cost for polytechnics in the 2016 budget is estimated at 58 billion naira, and has already raised criticism for the cutback from 61 billion. The Polytechnics and Colleges of Technology are essentially for the production of middle level technical manpower needed for industrial and technological development of the country” Nigeria currently spends over N900 million annually on skilled technical artisans from other countries, just over double of our annual education budget, this undermines the very existence of our technical institutions.

Former president, Goodluck Jonathan in a recent interview with the Cercle Diplomatique, an Association of international diplomats, based in Geneva, Switzerland said “We need to adjust our various school curricula to ensure that people are trained according to the economic needs of our people, especially for the students in the polytechnic institutions”

Since the Federal Polytechnic Statue enacted Decree No. 33 of 1979 as amended by Decree No. 5 of 1993 provided legal basis for the establishment of Federal Polytechnics in Nigeria. Technical institutions has sprouted round the nation, Nigeria has 25 federal polytechnics, 40 state polytechnics, 19 federal colleges and 19 federal technical institutions, not to mention the number of non-accredited private polytechnics and educational institutions littered round the nation, but what results can we show for this?

In an interview with, Mohammadu Lawal Kamba, deputy Registrar of Kaduna state polytechnic, he stressed on the continuity of educational institutions, he said “policy of government should be continuous, The vision and mission of institutions should be attained, regardless of changes in government” he further commented on the current curricula of his institution, he considers it to be innovative and technology driven, but it remains subjective to the governing council and any changes have to come from the top.

The polytechnic is a post-secondary technical institution of higher learning created mainly to provide a wide range of conventional and intermediate level of technology and technologists. One differentiating characteristic of technical institutions is its basic structure for practical learning; technical institutions have a role to drive a practical curriculum to build students in their field of study. Work attachments are also very important for building up experience for students in the path way of their careers and for the growth of the nation at large.

Curricula and teaching methodology need to be revised in line with the economic needs of today Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs is rapidly changing not only how we deal with the world around us but how we interact with each other. Tertiary educational institutions especially

The wave of the 4th revolution might be earlier that we expect and it’s no news that Nigeria has lagged behind in its info sphere and technological development. Technological graduates have little or no exposure to practical application of skills because of out-dated and ill equipped laboratory materials.

According to a lecturer that prefers to stay anonymous, “Government policies are continuously inconsistent. There is no element of Continuity New government, new policies is the technical order of the day in Nigeria. Bureaucratic bottlenecks, poor attitudes of students towards learning, low quality teaching due to lack of training and retraining of teachers, and among others are some of the problems facing polytechnics in Nigeria”

Martins Noel