The National Board for Technical Education has commenced the accreditation exercise for six new courses at the Federal Polytechnic, Wannue, Tarka LGA in Benue.

Ogah Ngbede, NBTE’s director of Polytechnics Programmes, disclosed this during the institution’s ongoing experiment on Thursday.

According to Mr Ngbede, all the courses will be inspected before being made a pronouncement. He said the exercise would last for two days, after which its decision would be made known.

He added that the institution secured full accreditation for two of the five courses it presented to NBTE in 2023.

Mr Ngbede said, “We are here to look at the claims made by the institution because they have requested to commence some new programmes. We are here to ensure that the right thing is done and ensure that this polytechnic is not regarded or treated as a second-grade institution.”

The director, who decried the poor funding of polytechnic education in Nigeria, called on the government at all levels to ensure adequate funds were allocated to the education sector.

“The major problem affecting polytechnic education in this country is finance. Let me use this opportunity to call on the government at all levels to inject more funds into the polytechnic system.

“Technical education is a low-hanging fruit from which this country can use to escape poverty; technical education all over the world has become a major currency that nations use to escape poverty.

“When we pay adequate attention to our polytechnics, students that graduate from these institutions can hit the ground running because they have the necessary tools to be job providers and not job seekers,” he said.

Earlier, the rector, Tyover Ashinya, listed the courses presented for accreditation, including Business Management, Public Administration, Agricultural Technology, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science.

He said the institution has the adequate manpower and infrastructure to run the six new courses effectively.

“We are willing to improve on all necessary areas that need improvement to enable these new courses to secure full accreditation,” the rector said.

The federal government established the institution in December 2020.

(NAN)