Breaking news reaching the Dailyschoolnews News desk today is that the Abia State Polytechnic has officially lost accreditation over non-payment of salaries and allowances of staff for 30 months.
Abia State Polytechnic, situated in Aba metropolis, has lost its accreditation over the non-payment of salaries and allowances of working staff. The staff of Abia Polytechnic have not been paid their salaries for over 30 months, which is over 2 years, and the school is still functioning?
HOW? Is it the Abia state governor that is teaching or what?
The National Board for Technical Education made the announcement today, Tuesday, July 19th, in a statement released by the Head of Media Department, Fatima Abubakar.
The accreditation of this recognised academic institution was withdrawn after several warnings which this institution’s management board, refused to heed to, including the Governor of the state, Okezie Ikpeazu.
Speaking on this development, the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) further disclosed that they had to withdraw the accreditation status of the Abia State Polytechnic, just to safeguard the quality assurance mechanism of the Board as well as to make sure that students of the institution are not put under undue pressure due or left at the mercy of demoralised staff that might resort to ‘under the table’ practices to survive, after not getting paid for two years and 6 months.
The statement released by the National Board for Technical Education read;
“To ensure a system continue to run accordingly and effectively, regular payment of salary is one of the major components of the Board’s normative instruments for quality assurance in the polytechnics, and Technical and Vocational Education and Training institutions under her purview.
“This is not the first time that the National Board for Technical Education Board had drawn the attention of the polytechnic to the dangers of non-payment of salaries, including the suspension of quality assurance visits by the same institution’s leadership.
“The Governing Council and management of the polytechnic has over the past two years, made several failed promises to the National Board for Technical Education, lying through their teeth that they will 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 it was sadly ignored.”
To pressurized the Abia state Polytechnic management board to pay their staff, the board went further and informed the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) 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.”
This notice of the withdrawal of the accreditation of the Abia State 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.
The statement added;
“Polytechnic proprietors across the country are advised to take regular payment of salaries of staff seriously as failure could lead to loss of accreditation.”
Don’t forget that few months ago, the Abia State University teaching hospital lost its accreditation over non-payment of salaries among other issues. We hope that the Abia state governor and everyone put heads together and ensure the state affairs are prioritised.
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