Taiwo Popoola
The Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund is considering repealing the act establishing the National Board for Technical Education, NBTE.
Chairman of the Committee, Senator 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.
According to him: “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 encourage 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.
“Sokoto is the only 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 stated.
