By Chris Konkwo
Never at anytime or circumstance have the Nigeria’s academia and the policy makers exhibited such ineptitude, remained inarticulate and non committal than in taking a stand on the lingering debate on the Degree/Higher National Diploma (HND) dichotomy. Some call it disparity.
The discourse has lasted for decades but like the mythological hydra, remained too complex for the government and relevant bodies to resolve. No issue has ever created such a puzzle to both the policymakers and the Nigeria’s academics.
The federal government has repeatedly said the two certificates remain equivalents. Same issue has taken a centre stage at the National Assembly. At a point, it was reported the motion had passed the second reading, all aimed at backing up the controversial equivalence of the two certificates with a law. The outcome of that legislation is yet to be made public.
While that is being awaited, HND graduates have continued to suffer discrimination not only in job employments, placements and promotion incentives but also the inability to proceed for further studies in their respective areas of study due to unnecessary encumbrances on the admission pathway.
Supporters of the disparity have also continued to consolidate their grounds on why the barrier between the two should be sustained bringing into play the existing competition and ego war between them, mostly university lecturers and their polytechnic counterparts.
Unfortunately, rather than stand and fight the war to a logical conclusion, the polytechnic lecturers and their non-academic staff prefer to struggle for a switch over to the universities.
Regrettably too, the reason for the disparity and, or consequences of the dichotomy are lost to many on either side of the argument. Some, even while asserting their position end up contradicting themselves.
Some of the reasons advanced for the dichotomy is that the polytechnics were ab- initio, established to boost the technical skills of the Nigerian workforce as middle level manpower for the nation’s technological growth. Others say the polytechnics lack the necessary equipment and facilities to train their students to measure up with their university counterparts.
Some even say without realizing the implications of their argument that the universities are theory-based unlike the polytechnics as though theories confer special status or advantage on theorists.
The debate appears to disregard that what makes a university or polytechnic what it is, and by extension their products is not just the name. An institution of higher learning as a citadel of knowledge and excellence must be able to offer quality education, parade the best brains to teach the students, have the required equipment to complement the theoretical impartation.
It should also have conducive atmosphere for learning, make for well academic funded research, balanced curricular for all round knowledge and reward for excellence both for the university/polythenic management, lecturers and students.
None of these is the exclusive preserve of the university or the polytechnic. The ultimate result is the production of educated elite that will propel the nation’s workforce for the anticipated national development. It’s within this context that the phrase ‘learning, conduct and character’, prefixed to the certificate awarded to the holder has meaning.
But rather than focus on these essentials for a rewarding outcome by our country’s higher institutions for a better Nigeria, our policy makers and other non-state actors have continued to dissipate their energies on unnecessary argument on the superiority of first degree over HND or HND over degree. This is to say the least, naïve and stupid.
One is wont to wonder whether what is important to the nation is quality service and the application of the necessary skills for ultimate results or what is appended on the certificate (ordinary paper). At worse, can’t the government and the employers subject holders of the two certificates to necessary tests and place them accordingly.
Also seemingly lost sight of in this unnecessary debate, is that the controversial equivalence is between BA or B.Sc and HND, not MA, or M.Sc or PhD. It’s imperative to pinpoint this because the discourse has always been centred on Degree Vs HND without specifying the category of degree.
Talking about equipment and facilities for learning in our tertiary institutions, the story remains that of woes, hence the constant de-accreditation and unlicensing of programmes by both the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) for the universities and the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) for the polytechnics due to lack of relevant equipments and necessary manpower.
So what is the advantage of a first degree holder over an HND holder, both of them being products of poorly equipped departments and faculties, the same curriculum, same teachers of equal status, poor academic environments, same textbooks and copied handouts, under same exam malpractice infected scenarios and generally corrupt educational system that promotes mediocrity over excellence.
Rather than address all this, our policy makers and not well informed members of the public keep robbing the reading and listening audience of their precious time by filling the media space with discourses on non- issues.
Is it not laughable that the so called foreign expatriates lured into the country with so much fun fare, money and job incentives with all the paraphernalia of office cruising cars, security, VIP treatment, etc, most of them do not have more than secondary school certificate.
A good number of them according to research findings are mechanics, electricians and technicians with little or no formal education in their respective countries. Yet they are so highly priced and respected. Why then is a Nigerian with similar experience and expertise different and treated with disdain on account of degree or HND certificate.
Why should a Nigerian of same status be confined or limited to a certain level beyond which he cannot be promoted or definitely get to the peak of his department on account of the colour or nomenclature of the certificate he holds which is the creation of the same confused policy makers.
Is it not also laughable that even in the social sciences and arts which require little or no special equipment but in-depth knowledge and creativity, the disparity also exists between the two.
A glaring scenario is a renowned writer and editor of repute with an HND for instance who has trained a good number of IT students for excellent media job and may wish to change his place of work as usual, only to be placed below his IT student who perhaps , has a degree. What a mark of underdevelopment (emphasis on paper, not knowledge, not creativity].
A worse scenario is the unconscious argument that a first degree holder who may have passed through part-time studies of the university [no particular university in mind] or Open University has more knowledge and is better educated than a HND holder who spent 5 years of intense study in the polytechnic [sorry if you fall into any of these categories].
The degree or HND graduate is not to blame either. The Nigerian educational system and those driving it are the culprits. They are, because the problem is fundamental.
Designed after the American and British educational system in the 1980s for the nation’s technological take-off and acquisition of the technical skills necessary for the Age of technology, our education policy makers after establishing the polytechnics across the country, went ahead to establish federal universities of technology with no clear purpose and intention different from the former.
Regrettably, both the polytechnics and universities of technology have operated in no remarkable different ways from the conventional universities.
Worse still, same education policymakers went ahead to make entry qualification into the polytechnics four O’level Credit passes at not more than two sittings while that of the universities was put at five O’level Credit passes at not more than two sittings, a position that seemingly conferred higher status on the university students, thus instilling in them some air of superiority.
The fact that most applicants who failed to secure admission into the universities, usually settle for the polytechnic admission also put paid to the notion of superiority and by the time of graduation the notion may have transformed into a “false reality”- traversing the labour market and work places.
The government has however taken some measures in the recent past to correct this self –created anomaly but to no avail, hence the continued debate on the disparity/dichotomy.
One of such measures is handing over the admissions into the polytechnics and universities to the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) but erroneously retains the discrepancy in the basic admission requirements – four O’level credits for the polytechnics against five O’level credits for the universities respectively.
No cogent reason has been given for this action even in the era where no one fails the WASC/SSSC exams ‘no thanks’ to stiff competitions among private and public schools vis-à-vis the prevailing corrupt educational system whose primary interest is making the money, not making the man.
The big poser is what is the way out of the woods now that the university mentality has eaten deep into our national psyche? Opinion polls seem to favour the scrapping of HND certificate and replacing same with B.Eng or B .Tech.
This is the case with other polytechnics elsewhere around the globe from where Nigeria borrowed the idea. The London Polytechnic for instance also offers Master’s Degree and Doctor of philosophy (PhD) simply because the polytechnics offer specialized courses and not rated on the basis of superiority or otherwise vis-à-vis the universities.
But in scrapping the HND and replacing same with B. Eng or B.Tech, the other conventional courses run in Polytechnics such as accounting, and other management courses, liberal arts and social sciences should be abrogated and run exclusively by the universities. The National Diploma (ND) should however be retained in the interest of those who may wish to stop at that level (middle-level manpower).
The compulsory one year industrial attachment required before proceeding to the HND programme should also be scrapped and incorporated into the five year programme at a go as obtains in the universities. The one year gap had long been nullified by the massive unemployment and dwindling fortunes of the manufacturing industry, etc across the country.
Does it not smack of naivety that in a country (Nigeria) where the constitutional requirement for the Office of the President is mere secondary school certificate (WASC or NECO), our so called academics and policymakers are still debating on the equality or otherwise of first degree with HND, both of which are just the starting points of real academic exploration.
Also ridiculous is that most Nigerian leaders, present and past – those at the echelon of policy and decision making include Presidents, Governors, Senators, House Reps, Council Chairmen, Councilors, SAs, PAs and even Ministers, most of them probably do not possess a degree or HND.
The Nigerian electorate has persistently remained blind to this national embarrassment, yet the media space continues to be inundated with unnecessary debate on the least headache of our rapidly falling standard of educational system.
Chris Konkwo, PhD, Fcai is a Communication Scholar and Port Harcourt based journalist 08052127956, 08134360458
