Later to polytechnic students and ND and HND holders(if you are about to apply for polytechnic this is a must read)

We keep clamoring for the removal of the dichotomy placed on HND and B.SC graduates. will this debate ever end? NO!. Will Nigerian HND ever be made equal to a bachelor’s degree? That is not going to happen either. Let's flashback to the establishment of polytechnic education.

According to an article titled “The Conversion of Federal Polytechnics into Universities: the funding aspects” in African Research Review-Journal: The polytechnic education was not originally intended to belong to the tertiary tier of education. It was initially conceived by the French and perfected by the English and Russians to be education and training aimed at discouraging elitism and geared towards the practical preparation of its recipients to fulfill prescribed norms of the economy, which are lacking in the traditional academic institutions. The aim was to evolve an educational system based on work and training. Although, this was later reformed in China, which led to its being regarded as a university-level institution, specializing in Engineering and Technology and providing in-service training and continuous education.

However, Nigerian Polytechnics are established with the mandate to produce middle-level manpower. The term by implication simply means graduates of Polytechnics no matter how robust their program is will never be considered equal to their University counterparts, who are regarded as the ‘higher level manpower’.

Many a time, It has been argued that the National Diploma (ND) holders from the polytechnics constitute the ‘middle-level manpower’ referred to in the polytechnic Act. If that’s the case, then the laws establishing polytechnics ought to have been amended or polytechnics converted to Universities before they are allowed to run a program higher than the ND. The HND program was introduced without doing any of that. What were they thinking? Besides, the HND program of the British government, from which our own HND was copied, does not require a prerequisite two-year diploma like ours.

It’s an independent two-year program and is considered equivalent to the first two years of a 3year bachelor’s degree program. That is, with the British HND, you’ll only need to spend one more year in the University to get a bachelor’s degree. Clearly, those who designed the Nigerian HND program didn’t know what they were doing. The ND program was sufficient to supply the much needed middle-level manpower.

Furthermore, Nigerian HND holders are agitating reason being that if it takes 5years to get Nigerian HND unlike the 2-year British HND that many compare it to why are they still not equivalent to B.sc holder Counterpart? Why are they treated with an inferiority complex in the labor market?

Courses worth more than 120 Credit-Hours, the minimum required internationally to bag a bachelor’s degree, must have been passed before earning HND. Affirmative in this regard by revealing that Nigerian HND is equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in their evaluations.

In conclusion, to eradicate this dichotomy, HND programs should be discontinued in Polytechnics. A one-year Top-up degree program should be designed by NUC to allow existing HND holders to obtain bachelor’s degrees.

I close by saying, Polytechnics should be refocused. Remember our fate is in our hands as people we need to work together not as a divided people that we are now. we need to think, plan, act and stop speaking in a staccato voice.

©Abdulkabeer Ibn Tijani