Checking unlicensed polytechnics

NBTE Executive Secretary, Dr Manzuid Kazaure, said recently that there were over sixty-five of such illegally schools as at the last count, exploiting the genuine desire of parents to provide for their children’s future, and then defrauding them.According to Dr Kazaure, such spurious centres routinely offer admission to their victims by peddling frivolous claims of […]

NBTE Executive Secretary, Dr Manzuid Kazaure, said recently that there were over sixty-five of such illegally schools as at the last count, exploiting the genuine desire of parents to provide for their children’s future, and then defrauding them.
According to Dr Kazaure, such spurious centres routinely offer admission to their victims by peddling frivolous claims of running programmes that could lead to the award of National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) certificates. The NBTE chief disclosed that security agencies had been alerted to the issue; it was now left to them to clamp down on operators of such fraudulent schools.
Kazaure said that some senior NBTE officials were under scrutiny over unauthorised issuance of registration licenses to privately-owned institutions; those found culpable would be charged, he said.
Operators of illegal schools in the country have a peculiar way of advertising their services to unsuspecting candidates. They provide free pamphlets and hand bills at business centres, ICT training venues, newspaper stands, supermarkets, motor parks, reception counters of hotels and restaurants, especially those frequented by young people. They avoid placing advertisements in newspapers for fear of being exposed and harassed. It is for the same fear of exposure that some of them do not indicate permanent addresses; they run their programmes mostly during weekends in school premises. Those who do have fixed addresses lack requisite infrastructure, including laboratories to run the courses they offer. Many young school leavers constrained either by the limited admission spaces in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions or by deficiencies in their ordinary level results, often are vulnerable to the fraudulent activities of operators of illegal institutions in many parts of the country. Beside wasting students’ time and their parents’ resources, graduates of these unlicensed polytechnics and monotechnics neither qualify for the mandatory one-year national youth service nor are their certificates recognized for employment in the public service.
But the alarming spread of illegal institutions has continued to sustain for this long because the NBTE, which is statutorily responsible for checking and preventing the problem, has failed in its task. A weak monitoring mechanism and non-sanctioning of operators of illegal polytechnics are basic factors responsible for this unacceptable practice that harms the country and destroys the educational ambition of citizens who fall prey to their antics.
Apart from further strengthening its monitoring mechanism, the NBTE must now equally ensure a strong but mutual synergy between it and relevant security agencies in dealing with the menace until it is completely tackled. Those who operate and abet illegal institutions in violation of the Education Act CAP ES LFN, 2004, must be sanctioned.
NBTE needs to go beyond publishing names of unlicensed polytechnics and monotechnics in newspapers, and regularly post on its website the list of all licensed institutions under its supervision; with hard copies of such lists sent to employers of labour in the public and private sectors. Such lists should be regularly updated.
Proprietors and managements of primary and secondary schools could help in tackling the menace by rejecting requests to use their premises and venues.
 Of course it goes without saying that a more effective solution would be for government to vastly and rapidly increase admission spaces in the country’s tertiary institutions. Once there is enough space to accommodate candidates qualified for admission into authentic polytechnics and universities, it would become economically unviable to operate illegal certificate-awarding centres.