The immediate past Rector of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Prof. Kazeem Adebiyi, has attributed the reduction in the number of candidates seeking polytechnic admission across the country to their preference for university education.
The former Rector stated this in Ibadan on Sunday in an exclusive interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.
Adebiyi said that preference for polytechnic education might not necessarily be due to the dichotomy between university and polytechnic, but preference for the former over the latter.
“It’s like everybody wants to go to the university rather than the polytechnic and that is what is causing the reduction in the number of candidates seeking polytechnic admission,” he said.
Adebiyi, who had just completed his five-year tenure as the Rector, however, noted that the development had not, in any way, affected the institution.
He said that when he took over the mantle of leadership five years ago, no fewer than 30,000 candidates applied to the polytechnic for admission though there were vacancies for only 4,000 students.
He said that some of the candidates who could not be admitted for full-time programmes were considered for part-time.
The former Rector ruled out economic factors as part of the reasons for the reduction in the number of candidates seeking polytechnic admission, saying that tuitions at polytechnics were not as high as those of the universities.
Adebiyi said: “At Ibadan Polytechnic, for instance, the tuition is just N64,000 per session despite the increase in the operating cost.
