Follow Us on Google
From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
The Federal Government has directed the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and other relevant authorities not to post engineering graduates to secondary schools for their primary assignments.
Fielding questions from reporters at a press conference, yesterday, in Abuja to herald the 31st COREN Engineering Assembly scheduled to hold from August 7, 2023 and August 9, 2023 in Abuja,
President of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Professor Sadiq Zubair Abubakar, also stated that the council has written to National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), all polytechnics and universities that they should administer oath-taking and induction of all graduating engineering students.
Failure to do this would be met with sanctions.
“We have written to NUC, NBTE. We have written to all universities, all polytechnics that there must be oath-taking and induction of our engineering graduates of the university and polytechnic graduates. If you don’t do that we will sanction you” he said.
“Also, from the next academic session, universities should admit students according to their capacity. If any university fails the instructions, it will be put on the spotlight.
“We have a policy that defines the number of students a university should admit based on the facilities of teaching and practicals in workshops and laboratories just like the medical students.
“We have written to all the universities, all polytechnics and we are supposed to follow up with enforcement. We have discussions with Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). JAMB is going to do what they are doing for the medical students.
“From the next academic session, you will not see any university where they have capacity to admit only 50, they are admitting 100. We will put that university on the spotlight and we will withdraw the mandate from them to teach engineering, like other professions are doing.
“We have already communicated that we want to enforce that law that gave us mandate in this country.
“We want to make sure that the skill and the proficiency of graduates, whether in universities or in polytechnics in engineering is sacrosanct as well.
“Our inspectorate at zonal and state levels will begin to invite you (newsmen) when universities and polytechnics will be graduating students.
“The students must be indexed just like in medicine. If you are not indexed, you will not be mobilised to NYSC. We have already written to the Director General (DG) of NYSC. We are going to work hand-in-hand to enforce that.
“We don’t want to see engineering graduates going to teach in secondary schools. So, we are also trying to take our own rightful position and we have already written to them” the president explained, adding that COREN has written to ministries, agencies and departments, including the private sector threatening to enforce the end to dichotomy between the polytechnic graduates and university graduates
“The placement of fresh engineering graduates is well defined in our civil service and the private sector. We are going to make sure that that is enforced,” Abubakar noted.
