NBTE suspends new polytechnic service schemes after backlash

The National Board for Technical Education clarified on Monday that the new schemes of service approved by the Federal Government are meant for federal polytechnics and not state-owned polytechnics.

The Executive Secretary of the NBTE, Prof. Idris Bugaje, clarified this at a press conference held at the Board’s headquarters in Kaduna.

Bugaje also announced the suspension of the “contentious” new schemes of service to give room for further input from stakeholders in the nation’s polytechnic sector.

The PUNCH reports that the NBTE unveiled new schemes of service on June 19, 2024, as approved by the Federal Government for Nigerian polytechnics, with effect from June 7, 2024.

The NBTE boss had told the gathering that the new schemes of service were a unified approach to the recruitment and promotion of staff across polytechnics in Nigeria.

However, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics kicked against it, alleging that the new schemes of service lacked inclusive stakeholder input, particularly from their union and stakeholders in the polytechnic sector.

Against this backdrop, the aggrieved lecturers gave a 15-day ultimatum to the Federal Government, effective July 8, 2024, to suspend the implementation of the new scheme of work or face diverse forms of industrial action by the union.

But the NBTE boss insisted that the schemes of service were for federal government-owned polytechnics and not for state polytechnics, as perceived by the union.

He, however, explained that there would be no negotiation in areas where the new schemes of service recognised “HND holders for the first time as Graduate Assistants like their university counterparts” as well as those that “require “principals and chief lecturers to have doctorate degrees (Ph.D.).”