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The National Board for Technical Education, on Tuesday, announced the withdrawal of the accreditation status of the Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, due to the non-payment of staff salaries and allowances for over 30 months.
This was contained in a statement by the NBTE’s Head, Media Department, Fatima Abubakar, in Kaduna State.
It said the Board took the decision when it realised that the management of the polytechnic was not committed to upsetting the arrears and ensuring regular payment of salaries of its workers.
The Board said that, on several occasions, it had warned the management of the institution, noting that “regular payment of salary is one of the key components of the Board’s normative instruments for quality assurance in the polytechnics, and Technical & Vocational Education and Training institutions under her purview.
The Board had drawn the attention of the polytechnic to the dangers of non-payment of salaries, including the suspension of quality assurance visits.
“The Governing Council and management of the polytechnic made several failed promises to settle the backlog of salary arrears and ensure regular payment of staff salaries.
“The Board went the extra mile of writing His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, informing him of the dire situation of the polytechnic but all to no avail.”
Against the backdrop, the Board said it had no option but to withdraw the accreditation status of the polytechnic just to safeguard the quality assurance mechanism of the Board as well as to ensure that students were not left at the mercy of demoralised staff that might resort to ‘under the table’ practices to survive.
Meanwhile, the Board has warned the National Youth Service Corps that “no product of the Abia State Polytechnic should be mobilised for national service until the management of the polytechnic resolves the issue of nonpayment of salary to its staffers, while the Board promised to notify the NYSC once the accreditation status of the polytechnic is restored.”
Besides, the Board said notice of the withdrawal of the accreditation of the polytechnic had been sent to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund and Industrial Training Fund in order to stop any official transaction with the polytechnic by those organisations.
“Polytechnic proprietors across the country are advised to take regular payment of salaries of staff seriously as failure could lead to loss of accreditation,” it added.
