Feature: Converting Polytechnics into Technical Universities: Is government’s commitment enough?

Government’s policy on converting polytechnics into technical universities will take-off in September 2016, to help reposition them as strategic institutions for the training of highly-skilled human resource to drive the nation’s socio-economic development.

Per Dr. Afeti’s report on the conversion, existing Polytechnics will be converted based on a set of criteria which includes qualification level and practical industrial experience of lecturers as well as collaboration with industries. Whilst these criteria are very crucial for the newly converted technical universities to deliver on their mandates, it goes with commitment of all the stakeholders involved to make this happen.

For instance many institutions such as the University of Allied Sciences and University of Energy and Natural Resources received both executive and legislative approval with little commitment on the part of government by providing the major infrastructure to assist teaching and learning. There are many questions that need to be asked and answers need to be provided for one to be clear about the government commitment of challenging these technical universities to fill the skilled human resource gap in this country.

As contained in the draft bill, technical universities are required to provide opportunities for skills development, applied research and publication of research findings. This can only be materialized if the newly converted technical universities are supported widely by the government. For instance in the UK, the Prime Minister's announcement of £204 million fund for UK universities to train future science leaders and to boost research is a clear signal to challenge these universities to train people who can come out with innovative ideas that will help address the needs of the country.

It is interesting to know that apart from this commitment, a total of £6.9 billion had been earmarked to be invested into science labs and equipment up to 2021 and most of the beneficiaries are the technical universities.

The question that needs to be asked and answers must be provided is that can the government commit such huge sums of money to address the infrastructure gap of these technical universities taking a clue from the conversion of the previous universities? If the answer is not affirmative, then these newly converted technical universities would be forced to generate funds internally to support its operations and one of these means is to concentrate on business education which is seen as the cash cow of many institutions in this country. When this happens the purpose of converting Polytechnics into technical Universities would be defeated.

Another requirement of the newly converted technical universities is to develop strong linkages and collaborations with relevant industries, businesses, professional bodies and technical experts in the delivery of programmes. The fulfilment of this requirement will help the newly converted technical universities train people that are industry ready which will reduce the training and development cost incurred by industries.

Strong collaboration with industries should be seen as a win-win affair if industries are to cooperate fully with these technical universities to train the nation’s manpower that will fit into the industry. For instance in Australia, the government’s vocational and education training programme (VET) helps to bridge the gap between the industry and the academia.

Brief engagement with some selected industries show that Industries are ready to collaborate with government to bridge graduate skills gap if government initiate policies that will provide the opportunity for a win-win situation. It is, therefore, necessary for government to assist industries through the Skills Development Fund (SDF) so that industries that are ill equipped will have the full complement of equipment needed to collaborate with these technical universities to train students.

The little survey by the writer also reveals that a greater part of the state owned enterprises do not have enough equipment to collaborate fully with these technical universities to bridge this graduate skills gap. To mention few of these entities are the National Cultural Centre, Information Services Department, Veterinary Services and the Public Works Department which are logistically handicap.

It is, therefore, necessary for the government to pay much attention to the private sector and create the necessary environment that will put them on a sound financial footing if technical universities are to get industries to assist them in training their students.