EQUATING B.Sc AND HND : JOKE FAR TOO TAKEN

When I heard the Polytechnic students agitating for equating HND and B.Sc while I was in the polytechnic I was very fast to join the agitation without examine critically the sensitivity and complexity of the topic in question. The truth of the matter is they can never be equated to be the same with the current educational state of Polytechnic.

The first error in the Polytechnic education is the "not up to standard syllabus" they paraded. The bitter truth is that the major drive for development is vested in having RELEVANT THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE of which Polytechnic can never give you the best in that respect. The practical they claimed to be a champion in is a faulty practical since it won't stems from a good theoretical knowledge. We all know that hypothesis becomes theory and theory are then proven to be either true or false in the laboratory which would in turn determine the acceptance or rejection of the theory, and maybe a modification of that theory in the future after series of findings have been attained in the laboratory. Now tell me how and why polytechnic practicals are supposed to be taken seriously if it sprang from a faulty and not up to standard theoretical knowledge? Why should such practicals be used as a premises to equate HND with B.Sc? You be the judge.

The university have seen these lapses in the Polytechnic and so they knew that whether as ND or HND graduate that wish to come for the continuation of his program in the university, there is a need to retake some of the courses they believed to be fundamental to the understanding of the course they came to study disregarding whether it has been taken in the polytechnic or not. We found to our surprise that most of those courses were being failed by polytechnic students at an alarming rate and this explain the difference in standards. The demand in university for pass mark alone is almost equal to that required to score B in the polytechnic. In OAU where I finished from and even in UI, the demand for pass mark is so high that you would see people reading at the beginning of semester as if they have exams in the next two hours and yet they would still failed or score C the hardest way. That is how tough OAU is.

There are too many cases I can just relate with that can never allow such things to happen. The project done by the University students are far more standard than that of the polytechnic students, maybe because I went to OAU sha. You would write a proposal and defend it before embarking on such project during which the project can be rejected or accepted. The standard of report writing is so different that anytime I checked my project report I wrote in the polytechnic I laughed at the inferiority seen.

My advice to all polytechnic student is to campaign for the syllabus review of polytechnic education to stand side by side or even better than that of university (though am afraid that won't work) before thinking of equating HND and B.Sc.

Secondly, they should scrap polytechnic education and reconstruct the infrastructure to standard of that of university and change the syllabus entirely.

With these done, there can be hope for polytechnic student otherwise their conditions will worsen particularly when a students of university of Ibadan or OAU where marks are very very hard to get attain presidency position who might even reduce the ratings that the polytechnic students are benefitting now.

I hope this get to the government, Polytechnic management and lecturers.

#reformpolytechniceducationsystem
#reviewpolytechnicsyllabus
#notoequatingHNDandBScwithoutsyllabusreview

By SALAAM Taiwo Afeez

He can be reached through
07035480650 or salamitaiwoafeezf@yahoo.com

Yes, by 2118.

Maybe...