National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has banned all diploma programmes other than National Diploma run by some polytechnics and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions under its purview.
The executive secretary of the board, Prof Idris Bugaje, said the ban becomes necessary in view of the proliferation of such diploma programmes which are not acceptable for career progression or academic advancement.
According to him, such diploma programmes have for long been banned but lamented that some institutions still run these programmes, sometimes through affiliation with other institutions.
A statement issued by the head media unit of the board, Hajia Fatimah Abubakar and made available to newsmen said, findings indicated that the polytechnic diploma run by approved institutions are not accredited by NBTE, and are mostly for Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) purposes.
Bugaje lamented that holders of such Diploma certificates are often left in a dilemma as they neither secure employment nor progress academically with such qualification, pointing out that the board was always inundated with requests for clarification and evaluation of the certificates by Nigeria and international organization as well as foreign missions.
He therefore called on such institutions running such diploma programmes to seek the board’s approval to formalize such diplomas by subjecting it to the quality assurance mechanism of the NBTE.