Nigerian Newsday

Recently, our Kaduna State Correspondent Lawal Dogara had an interview with the rector, Kaduna Polytechnic, Dr. Danjuma Ismaila Isa. He spoke on the problems facing Polytechnic education in the country and the way forward.

Sir, since you became the rector, what have you done towards achieving peace and academic excellence?

Since I got here in 2002, I have tried hard to see there is peace for academic excellence. I met lots of problems: administrative and financial. But we have been able to get the Polytechnic back on course, the course of growth and peace. The relationship between teaching staff and non-teaching staff as well as between staff and students is cordial, it has been very, very cordial.

What are your plans towards further developing the polytechnic?

Now we have peace. I was a student of this Polytechnic. I went through the polytechnic when it was known, all over the world because of its academic excellence. But it has almost degenerated to what you may expect from smaller polytechnics. My plan is to make the polytechnic sound again, and we are putting the right measures in place.

Management of Kaduna Polytechnic has often complained that the allocation you have been getting from government come short of what you require to pay staff salary. What is the situation now?

The problem of salary has been there. Now, we have a staff strength of 4,000 people. No other polytechnic in the country has anything near this number. So, salary problem has been with us for a very long time. We have been using internally generated revenue to augment what government sends to us. The problem of shortfall in government’s funding however improved in last year’s federal budget and we had a smooth running of the Polytechnic from January to June. There was peace because everyone was collecting his salary every month end. We thought the permanent answer to our worries had come, but the problem came back in July because, instead of 143 million naira we were getting to pay salary, we got only 113 million naira and I don’t even know how we are going to share it now. We have been talking to our ministry about it. The National Board of Technical Education (NBTE) has also gone for towards finding a solution. We have been contacting the government to give us what we need so we can again have peace on the campuses.

Maybe you should talk more about NBTE. What should they do and what have they been doing to ensure smooth operating environment for polytechnics, yours for example?

The NBTE is our supervising agent. They see to it that our academic programmes meet required standards, and they visit schools for course accreditation. The board is the only one in the country I know which is very serious about course accreditation. They are doing the right thing and I can attest to that by my knowledge of their activities.

As an educationist and administrator, how do you assess government’s investments on education?

Technical education in particular is the sub-sector that should attract much funding. No country develops well outside technical education. There is a problem here because government places more emphasis on universities making polytechnics look insignificant, and forgetting that countries grow technologically through well-funded technical education. If the government will look at it more critically, because they know you can’t well ignore Polytechnics, but why do they still discriminate against polytechnic education and products of polytechnics? Why is there so much regard for universities at the expense of polytechnics? Look at me for instance. I chose to come for teaching in the polytechnic because I felt it was a better place to be, a place that Nigeria could not afford to ignore or give second fiddle position. But my friend who chose to teach in the university is a professor now. I can’t be a Professor matter how long I last here. This is the grim reality. And who are you, a mister, to stand before a professor? No one will look at you. Yet, you may have spent more years teaching than he has done.

He becomes a professor almost only because he teaches in the university. This is just one of the many frustrations people endure because they are in the polytechnic education sub-sector either as student or as lecturer. Again, in all of Africa; South Africa, East Africa, even in Central Africa, all polytechnics offer degree programmes. When I was in the United Kingdom, all polytechnics there run courses from national diploma up to doctorate degree (Ph.D). We know it. Officers from our parent ministries and parastatals, supervising agents, the senate and house of representatives travel outside to see these things. Why do we still discriminate? Why do we like to be different when it comes to this matter? Why should we not mount degree programmes if we have the means? Can we develop without the right emphasis on technical education? More fundamental even is the discrimination for a degree holder against a higher diploma holder. It is still there, the discrimination. Even in our own system here, if you come out of a university with even a third class you come here, you are a lecturer. But a higher diploma holder get called an instructor, a lower designation.

Finally, Sir, as a citizen of Nasarawa State, what message do you have for Governor Abdullahi Adamu?

Thank you very much. Governor Abdullahi Adamu is a friend and is my co-old student of Kaduna Polytechnic. He is a dynamic person. He is determined that his people should have good education.

This is why he has worked hard to see that the university he has established survives. He also went ahead to establish a polytechnic. He is a wise leader who knows the importance of education, if people are to make good progress. My message is that he should continue in his efforts. He is doing the right things.