Polytechnic lecturers reject new governing council members

The polytechnic lecturers have expressed great displeasure over the calibre of people that the Federal Government appointed as members and chairmen of the newly constituted governing councils for its federal polytechnics.

The lecturers, under their umbrella body, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), said the people who made the list are strangers to the polytechnic education system in the country, demanding a change of the list.

The National President of ASUP, Shammah Kpanja, gave the union’s position in a statement made available to the Nigerian Tribune on Monday.

The union said that not only did it condemn, in the first instance, the abrupt dissolution of all the previous council members by the federal government, but also that it was a bad decision for the government to take almost a year to constitute new councils.

According to ASUP, both actions had caused lots of complications and illegalities within the time frame of the absence of governing councils, holding the polytechnic subsector captive.

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The Federal Government, last Friday, released the list of the new governing council members for all its tertiary educational institutions, comprising universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education.

They are 555 in all, with each of them having five persons as external members of the councils, including their chairmen. Since the release of the lists, reactions have been trailing the action from the stakeholders.

ASUP, while explaining reasons for its displeasure and disappointment with the current list, said it based its position on the personalities of the appointees, saying they are not a true reflection of the caliber of personnel the polytechnic education in the country really needed.

The group said that it had been demanding for years that only persons who have requisite knowledge of the working system of the polytechnic subsector should be appointed as governing council members for polytechnics.

According to the group, such persons could be former Rectors and other Principal Officers from the sector, former chief executives and staff of the polytechnic regulatory body, retired and serving Chief Lecturers, and other staff from the subsector, noting that such types of people abound in the country.

ASUP pointed out that the composition of the new councils falls significantly short of those appointed, saying that such action is not only a great disservice to polytechnic education but also totally different from what happened regarding universities and CoEs.

It said, “We are witnesses to the fact that former Executive Secretaries of regulatory bodies, former principal officers, and retired and serving staff and so forth were appointed in the other subsectors; but none was curiously found appointable for the polytechnics.

“We also have the retinue of former Rectors, Chief Lecturers, and other Principal Officers in Nigeria’s Polytechnic System, yet none was found worthy to be appointed.

So, our union views this unwholesome trend as an extension of the age-long discrimination against polytechnics in the country and an attempt to push the sector into deeper crisis.”

The union, therefore, argued that the list for polytechnics as released cannot improve the lot of the polytechnics but rather turn them into playgrounds for businessmen.

“So, our union hereby demands that the list for the polytechnics be reviewed before the inauguration to include the class of persons with requisite knowledge of the workings of Polytechnics.

This, according to the union, will save the sector from the crisis associated with poor governance, which is likely to prevail if the list is not reviewed accordingly.