A bill to abolish the dichotomy and discrimination between Bachelor’s Degree holders and Higher National Diploma (HND) holders has scaled second reading in the House of Representatives.
According to the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, the bill sought to replace HND with Bachelor of Tech so that graduates of polytechnic would be able to compete favourably with other university graduates.
The bill, which was sponsored by a member, Fuad Laguda from Lagos State, also emphasised the importance of technical education.
Speaker Abbas said the position taken by all boards of polytechnics in Nigeria is “the abolition of HND and in place of it to have Bachelor of Technology so that at least graduates of polytechnics will be able to compete with those from universities”.
At the same time, they are calling for hybrid supervision where the degree component of the polytechnic education will be handled by the NUC (National Universities Commission) while the national diploma will continue to be handled by the NBTE (National Board for Technical Education).
“Because of the degree component of this amendment, they felt that the qualification for being rector should also be upgraded to a Ph.D holder at the minimum since you will now be talking about degree programmes, it is only proper for such kind of establishment to have a Ph.D holder as the head of the institution,” he said.
Abbas subjected the bill to a voice vote and the lawmakers approved it to scale second reading.