The row between the National Board for Technical Education and the National Universities Commission over the proposed top-up degree scheme for HND holders deepened on Monday.
The NBTE, in a statement on Monday by its spokesman, Fatima Abubakar, said the scheme was “beyond the jurisdiction of the National Universities Commission,” and asked the commission to stay out of it.
The PUNCH had on Saturday reported that the NUC, in a strongly worded statement, asked the NBTE to suspend action on the planned top-up degree for HND holders.
In the statement, the NUC’s acting Executive Secretary, Chris Maiyaki, accused the NBTE of acting beyond its mandate with the proposed top-up scheme and asked it to drop the “top-up scheme being concocted.”
Maiyaki insisted the NUC reserves the power to prescribe the minimum academic standards as well as accredit universities and their programmes .
Earlier, this newspaper had reported that the NBTE through its head, Prof. Idris Bugaje, announced a partnership with foreign universities where HND graduates could convert their diplomas to degrees through a one-year conversion course, to address the dichotomy that has continued to exist between graduates of universities and polytechnics.
According to Bugaje, HND holders who choose to pursue an academic career, at the moment, have no progression path except through the Postgraduate Diploma and anytime they wish to switch to universities as lecturers after their Ph.D., they are always queried to produce their first degree.
Proffering a lasting solution to the HND–BSc crisis, therefore, Bugaje had implored the Minister of Education to convince President Bola Tinubu to sign the Anti-Dichotomy Bill into law, assuring that it would bring an end to the unwarranted and undeserved discrimination against HND holders in Nigeria.
The NBTE said the ‘top-up’ or ‘credit transfer admissions’ by foreign universities was being mooted as an alternative to the PGD while also quoting media reports that six Nigerian universities indicated an interest in joining the conversion programme but were denied their request by their boards on the argument that the “NUC may not give them approval.”
But defending the merit of the top-up scheme in its Monday statement, the NBTE explained that it has no financial benefits from the scheme as “the admissions are done by foreign universities and their Senates make awards of degrees, not the NBTE.”
“In fact, the entire process is designed to operate seamlessly without the NBTE.
NBTE also has no financial benefit in the whole exercise, though we requested low tuition of a maximum of about 10 per cent of regular fees since course delivery is online.”
The NBTE argued that the NUC’s seeming objection to online courses would amount to an “attempt to take us back to the 20th century.”
The NBTE argued that online programmes are “today a globally accepted mode of education delivery, especially in the 21st Century.”
“The Nigerian educational policy has accommodated that with an Open University approved by the Federal Government and NBTE-approved Open Distance Flexible and e-learning centres being operated by 36 polytechnics at the moment, and the number is growing.”
The NBTE, therefore, cautioned the NUC against “further” discrimination of HND graduates.”
“Nigerian HNDs are much respected globally. Many European countries give them direct admission to Master’s. Last year, a shining example was Miss Islamiyat Ojelade, HND Distinction in Science Lab Technology (Biochemistry) graduate from the Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, who last year received PhD admissions and scholarships from seven top US universities, without the BSc. and not even MSc.
“Let us, therefore, start respecting our HNDs here at home and stop this discrimination by NUC and others with this mindset.”
Punch
