The National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS) on Monday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the bill seeking the removal of the dichotomy…
The National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS) on Monday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the bill seeking the removal of the dichotomy between HND and BSc holders in the country before leaving office on May 29th.
The students threatened to shut down all polytechnics, colleges of technology, and allied institutions that award HNDs across Nigeria if Buhari doesn’t assent to the bill in the next 14 days.
The NAPS Deputy Senate President, Adeniji Temitope, in a statement, said Nigerian polytechnic students and alumni have been suffering challenges as a result of the dichotomy.
The student body alleged that although Buhari had been signing numerous measures, the HND/BSc dichotomy bill had not been included. They, therefore, vowed to “occupy the Presidential Villa in Abuja and continue to cry until Buhari assents to the bill.”
“Polytechnic students and graduates are one of the major groups that supported and sustained the regime of the president. We shouldn’t be treated like outcasts in our nation. Buhari should stop the HND/BSc dichotomy now and make it one of his major achievements,” the statement said.
This is coming two weeks after the Nigerian Association of Technologists in Engineering (NATE) also urged Mr President to assent to the bill.
The National President of NATE, Dominic Udoatan, during a briefing in Abuja, asked, “What injury will anyone suffer if this particular bill is signed into law”?
“I doubt if there is any, except for some people who do not want Nigeria to grow technologically. Those obstructing presidential assent on this bill are people who want us to remain an importing nation, and are not wishing the country well,” he said.
He said unfortunately, “efforts to abolish this ugly monster called the HND and BSC dichotomy in Nigeria have always been thwarted by enemies of technological advancement in Nigeria, who want the country to go down at all costs.”
“These self-centred persons with ill motives stay at a corner and constantly devise means of frustrating polytechnic education, technological breakthrough/development, and the technologists in our dear country,” he said.
“We wish to appeal to Mr President to assent to the bill before him. If the bill is graciously signed by the president, posterity will forever remember him,” he said.
While expressing the frustration felt by HND holders, the president said they see no need for the dichotomy, so it should be removed because there is no work progression.
He said they start work, and after about 10 years in service, they will get to level 14 and then remain stagnant at the level for 20 years or more before retirement while degree holders progress.
-Dailytrust
