There has been renewed vigour recently on the debate about the battle for superiority between universities and polytechnic institutions in Nigeria.
The latest debate has been elicited by the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP) who lamented the continued abandonment of the nation’s polytechnics.
ASUP further said that this is responsible for the poor patronage by candidates seeking admission into institutions of higher learning in the country.
Mr Anderson Ezeibe, ASUP President, who spoke at a special media briefing in Abuja yesterday, disclosed that only one per cent of candidates who wrote the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations(UTME) opt for polytechnics.
“The low appetite for polytechnics today is evidenced by the one per cent approximate applicant figures for polytechnics in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations in the last five years as young Nigerians continue to show their preference for the other tiers of tertiary education in the country,” he said.
He said the government must give her national vocational educational objective the necessary support it deserved in terms of funding and frowning against dichotomy and discrimination.