The federal government plans to release N15 billion for the revitalisation of facilities in its polytechnics.

Acting Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, David Gender, made this known in Abuja on Tuesday at a retreat for Chairmen of Governing Councils and Principal Officers of Federal Polytechnics.

He spoke as a representative of the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu.

“One of the strategies the ministry is adopting in addressing the issues and challenges in the polytechnics sector is the encouragement and support of periodic fund raising initiatives,’’ he said.

Mr Gender told the retreat that initiatives included the launching of endowment funds, patents, consultancy and commercialisation of research.

He also said that the government was planning to review the scheme of service of polytechnic staff and resolve the issue of Consolidated Tertiary Institutions Salary Structure (CONTISS-­15) migration.

The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) developed CONTISS-15 in 2009.

It refers to the movement of staff from one salary grade level to the next salary grade level provided they meet all necessary requirements.

Some of the mandatory requirements include that staff must have been employed before August 2009.

According to Mr Gender, the federal government is engaging staff unions of polytechnics on their demands geared toward the improvement in the quality of research, teaching and learning.

“The federal government is committed to rapid development of our education sector with particular emphasis on technical and vocational education and training.”

However, according to him, “Unfortunately, efforts of government are hampered by persistent corruption in the sector.” 

Mr Gender called for the support of participants to collectively face the numerous challenges for the positive development of the education sector, national development and global competitiveness.

In a remark, Executive Secretary of the NBTE, Idris Bugaje said the upgrading of polytechnics to universities would only lead to the degrading of same polytechnics.

“The university is swallowing the polytechnics. Polytechnics and universities are parallel; we are not feeders.

“Colleges of Education feed the university system. If you convert them to universities, you are upgrading them, but if you convert a polytechnic to a university, you are degrading it and this will not help the economy.

“We must stop this crave of converting polytechnics to universities. I advocate a reverse of conversion of universities that are not doing well into polytechnics,’’ he stressed.

(NAN)