History was made recently at The Polytechnic Ibadan, as one of its long-time lecturer, Dr Ismail Oyetunji, delivered the first ever valedictory lecture in the institution.
Speaking on the lecture topic titled: ‘Re-enacting The Past Glorious Days of The Polytechnic Ibadan: The Roles Of The Stakeholders’, at the Assembly Hall, North Campus of the institution, Oyetunji, who began his career in the school sometime in 1996, was able to brilliantly highlighted some giant strides the institution has been able to record since existence and how those giant strides can still be improved on.
He noted that for Polytechnic education in Nigeria to be relevant globally, it should promote development of skills which is the new global currency of labour market.
Oyetunji, recommended that Polytechnic education should engage up-skilling and re-skilling of the work force at the same time create platform for the inclusion of the informal sector, have a strong link with the industry to ensure marketable skills development for our students and establish a dual certification system for polytechnic graduates, which will be for theoretical aspect and skills development level for entrepreneurship.
He also, emphasized that establishment of Entrepreneurship Development Centres (EDC) in Polytechnics is also important and should have deliberate programmes to harvest the innovative indigenous technologies emerging in the locality and develop the inventors further by leveraging on all the available windows of funding opportunities through TETFund IBR and NRF.
While speaking specifically on The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyetunji, a former Director of the institution’s Continuing Education Centre (CEC), stated that the institution was highly referred and ranked both nationally and internationally.
He noted that: “The National Diploma products of the institution in those days, who travelled overseas to further their studies in the various universities in the UK and USA, were usually exempted in some levels/courses which enabled them to fast track the completion of their Degree and Higher Degree Programmers. This trend was very common in the 1970s up to the early 1980s.”
Commenting on what he termed as the not-toogood-era of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyetunji listed some factors which was responsible for the drop in the ranking of the institution in the comity of Nigerian Polytechnics. These include: Large number of students intakes. He stated that: “There were large number of students intakes into the various academic programmes of the Institution. This made it possible for many candidates to be admitted and naturally led to production of low-quality graduates, with little or no potential for employability.
“Also, there was high Level of Student’s Cultism: admission of candidates with low paper qualifications, naturally led to the influx of unserious students into the institution and this scenario was largely responsible for the incidence of Students Cultism on the campus and its attendant bad image for the Institution. Progressive Students Activism of the Golden Era, was completely replaced by Students Cultism, with its attendant negative consequences for the image and reputation of the Institution.
“Poor funding by the owner State Government: This Era was characterised by poor funding by the owner State Government in all its ramifications. That is, the Capital Grant, Overhead, and Personnel subventions from the owner State Government were in acute short supply. This trend actually led both the Governing Council and the Management of the Institution to embark on the large-scale admission of students, so as to be able to generate enough revenue to be able to keep the Institution going. This was the time of ‘’WAIVER’’ for those students who were unable to meet the minimum “Entry Requirements’’ for Admission into the Institution.
“Late rendition of both semester and graduating results: As a result of sporadic upsurge in the number of students in the various academic programmes, there were acute lateness in the release of scores by the academic Staff and consequently in the computation and release of both semester and graduating results. This trend usually brought about student’s agitation for the release of their results and which also led to bad image and reputation of the institution among the members of the public.
“Low ranking and recognition of the institution: “Due to the incidence of large student’s intakes, with its attendant incidences of student’s cultism, student’s crisis, low quality of graduates etc., the ranking of the Institution became very low. There was no more international recognition for the products of the Institution. However, during this period, some students were still able to come top in many of the Tertiary Institutions Competitions. Also, the Institution was able to emerge as Number Four (No. 4) among all the Polytechnics in Nigeria and also emerged as the Number One (No.1) State Polytechnic in Nigeria.
“Poor staffing of academic departments: This Era was largely characterised with poor staffing of the various academic Departments, especially the one with large number of students intakes. The introduction of Casual Staff, generally tagged as ‘’Teaching Assistants’’ into the Academic Staffing of the Institution actually brought about a lot of negative consequences which led to very poor service delivery.”
While suggesting ways to restore the golden era of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyetunji, listed: Resuscitation of the vocational skills improvement unit by the institution management, institutionalisation of research grants as the major source of IGR, stoppage of casualisation of academic staff by the institution Governing Council, increased funding of Polytechnic education by government, collaboration with foreign institutions on staff and students exchange by the institution management, Resuscitation of issuing semester and cumulative graduating academic transcripts to students, reduction of tuition fees by the government through the institution management, establishment of more Polytechnics by the government and resuscitation of having two Deputy Rectors by the institution Governing Council as some of the steps to be taken to bring back the lost glory of the
In his remarks, The Rector of the institution, Professor Kazeem Adebiyi, commended Dr Ismail Oyetunji, for the brilliant way he presented the lecture and wished him best of luck in his future endeavours, while promising that the management of the school will critically look into the various suggestions he made going forward.
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