By Victor Akan
The Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund is considering repealing the Act establishing the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) to realise its objectives.
Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Muntari Dandutse said this when he led members of the committee on an oversight visit to the Board’s office in Abuja on Thursday.
While noting the importance of the board to the technological development of Nigeria, Dandutse said that the Senate would look into amending the obsolete laws governing NBTE.
“We will look at repealing the laws that will make them realise the objectives of innovation in a modern set up.
“We are going to look into the challenges and address them. We want to partner with you. We need to address young Nigerians to be self employed.
“It’s only through these polytechnics we can have technical students who can achieve a very robust innovation in making Nigeria great in terms of engineering”.
The Executive Secretary of NBTE, Prof Idris Bugaje, said that the Board was established in 1977 adding that it supervises, accredits and regulates over 700 institutions, 156 polytechnics and 145 monotechnics.
He disclosed that Sokoto state and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were the only states yet to have federal polytechnics.
“Sokoto is only the state in Nigeria without a federal polytechnic. We appreciate it so that Sokoto will also have a federal polytechnic.
“We are proposing that FCT has a federal polytechnic in Gwarinpa. A draft has already been given to the minister and it will soon go to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and from there to the Senate.”
He also noted that the struggle to upgrade NBTE to a national polytechnic commission has started.
“We look forward to support from this Senate Committee,” Bugaje said.
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