By Adedapo Adesanya
The Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund is considering repealing the Act establishing the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) to realise its objectives in line with modern educational standards in the country.
This was disclosed by the Chairman of the Committee, Mr Muntari Dandutse, when he led members of the committee on an oversight visit to the board’s office in Abuja on Thursday.
Mr Dandutse said that the Senate would look into amending the obsolete laws governing NBTE, noting that the board was important to the development of technological education in Nigeria.
“We will look at repealing the laws that will make them realise the objectives of innovation in a modern set-up. We are going to look into the challenges and address them. We want to partner with you. We need to encourage young Nigerians to be self-employed.
“It’s only through these polytechnics we can have technical students who can achieve a very robust innovation in making Nigeria great in terms of engineering”.
The Executive Secretary of NBTE, Professor Idris Bugaje, said that the board was established in 1977, adding that it supervises, accredits and regulates over 700 institutions, 156 polytechnics and 145 monotechnics.
He disclosed that Sokoto State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were the only states yet to have federal polytechnics.
“Sokoto is only the state in Nigeria without a federal polytechnic. We appreciate it so that Sokoto will also have a federal polytechnic.
“We are proposing that FCT has a federal polytechnic in Gwarinpa. A draft has already been given to the minister and it will soon go to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and from there to the Senate.”
He also noted that the struggle to upgrade NBTE to a national polytechnic commission has started.
“We look forward to support from this Senate Committee,” Professor Bugaje said.