Mr Adamu Kesuwo, Dean, School of Administration and Management, Plateau Polytechnic, Barkin-Ladi, has explained that brilliant lecturers leave polytechnics because they desire to become professors.?
“Professorship is only attained in the universities and every lecturer wants to attain that status because it is the highest academic status one can aspire to.?
“We have always suggested the need for reforms that can enable polytechnics have professorships because currently, the highest one can become is Chief lecturer, even with a Phd,'' he told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos on Monday.?
He decried the “lack of innovation in the polytechnic system,'' stressing the need for “more dynamism to minimise stagnation and degradation of polytechnic education''.?
Kesuwo challenged polytechnic authorities to welcome reforms and innovations that would help polytechnics to occupy their place in the technological world.???
He pointed out that the inability to rise to professorship was a major bottleneck in the ranking system that was unhealthy and inimical to the polytechnics' quest to achieve their mandates.?
“Again, movement of lecturers out of the polytechnic not only registers dissatisfaction but also frustrates technological advancement for which polytechnics were created,'' he said.??
“In my own department, lecturers leave the polytechnics every year to the universities in pursuit of academic excellence and position, especially professorship.
Policy formulators must look into this and come out with proactive steps to check it.?
“We must devise a way to make it possible for polytechnic lecturers to become professors from within so as to keep the best hands, especially since polytechnics are supposed to be the launch pad for technological advancement,'' he stated.