Following the failed efforts by previous administrations to end the lingering discrepancy between B.Sc.
/HND holders in government agencies and the private sector, agitations have been renewed for President Bola Tinubu to assent to the bill seeking to abolish the dichotomy...
It also aimed to promote Nigeria’s technological advancement by encouraging many qualified candidates to pursue polytechnic and technological studies.The issue of dichotomy between university and HND holders in the country, especially when it comes to employment, has been in national discourse for a long time.
Also, due to discrimination, HND graduates are‘forced’ to undergo a two-year conversion programme in universities. Even those who graduated with distinction or upper credit are not allowed to study medicine or law through direct entry in most universities. They are simply asked to write the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination .
In 2021, out of 1.8 million candidates, only one per cent applied to polytechnic. Of the 1,595,773 applicants for the 2023 UTME, 1,453,797, representing 91 per cent, are seeking admission into universities, while 141,976 candidates, representing only nine per cent of total candidates, are seeking admission into polytechnics, colleges of education and other enterprise institutions.
Before then, in 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, in a move to end the discrimination, approved a new policy reversing the existing one, which restricts polytechnic graduates from rising above salary grade level 14 in the public service, unlike their university counterparts. Even former President Buhari frowned at the disparity between degree and HND holders in the civil service.
Stakeholders in the sub-sector are, again, pleading with Tinubu to save the situation by considering the bill. Aside from lopsided career progression at work, HND holders who intend to get masters degree are required to do postgraduate diploma , which usually runs for a year. He said: “I needed to outgrow the limitations and discrimination that HND has. For instance, I don’t know of any school in Nigeria that accepts HND certificates for a masters programme. One has to do a PGD and, even with that, there is no certainty of getting admission. So, instead of a one-year PGD, I decided to go to university.
Ezeibe, therefore, urged President Tinubu to ensure he makes history by signing the bill into law and officially put an end to all forms of discrimination in connection with the long-existing dichotomy between the holders of both certificates, particularly at workplaces.His colleagues with whom he was employed in 2005 at the Ministry of Labour in Kwara State, have risen above him and even have better prospects.
“After a year at work, a degree holder would advance to grade level ninewhile his HND counterpart would spend three years before getting promoted to the next level,” he added.
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