Dr (Mrs) Phillipa Idoho is the Rector of the Federal Polytechnic Auchi, Edo State. As a product of the institution, Idogho understands its problems and has made efforts to fix them since assuming office six years ago. As the polytechnic marks its 50th anniversary today (Sunday), Idogho, referred as the Iron Lady, due to her efforts to end cultism and instil discipline in the institution, says the Auchi Polytechnic remains the best polytechnic in the country. Excerpts:

By Simon Ebegbulem, Benin-city

How do you feel being the first female rector of this institution?

The institution has been under my watch since 2008, and, together with my staff and students, we are giving our best to build a great institution. Again, it has been quite challenging and interesting being the first female rector here. I have tried to ensure that I leave some landmark and do a lot of training and re-training to increase the human capacity we have and we have done quite a lot in the area of infrastructural development. It has been interesting working as the first female rector of the polytechnic as I receive cooperation from the staff and students.

Even the man folk have been cooperative and we have all been working together to achieve the desired goals.

Incessant strikes in tertiary institutions

My advice is that when there are crises, the differences should be placed on the table so

that there can be dialogue because with dialogue, a lot can be achieved.

Funding/challenges

Phillipa Idoho

It is one of the great challenges we have in the education sector, but government is doing its best especially through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND); it is helping to meet up with some of these challenges like infrastructural development, buying of equipment and all of that. Funding can never be adequate to do all that we need to do especially for old institutions like ours where you have analogue equipment and you need a lot of fund to change them to digital equipment and gradually the government is doing that. Like recently, through the TETFUND, government provided mechatronic equipment to about 30 polytechnics in Nigeria. If government continue to renew the equipment every year, we will be able to change all our analogue equipment to digital.

Digital facilities required to train in a digital age are expensive to procure. We have put ours to use and it has proved beneficial.

I think the polytechnic system can do better if more of such modern facilities

are provided.

Another major challenge to the polytechnic education is this unreasonable disparity between holders of polytechnic diploma and university degree, and the consequent discrimination against the former.

This has cast a pall of despair and disillusionment on both operators and students in the sector, and it manifests in the hugely diminishing number of young Nigerians who apply for admission into the polytechnic sector.

Background of Auchi Poly

It was founded in 1964, first, as a technical college which was a gift of the British government to the then Midwestern Region.

It offered courses only up to the Ordinary Diploma level in limited areas of engineering and business. By the turn of the seventies, there was the need for skilled manpower at a higher level and in many more disciplines.

Thus in 1973, Bendel State Government upgraded the technical college to a

full fledged polytechnic with the mandate to train skilled manpower up to Higher National Diploma level in a broad range of engineering, science, environmental studies, business studies and art and design.

Today, the polytechnic runs sixty-three programmes up to the Higher National Diploma level, all enjoying full accreditation status. The programmes are grouped into six schools: School of Applied Science, School of Art and Industrial Design, School of Business Studies, School of Engineering Technology, School of Environmental Studies and School of Information and Communication Technology, School of General Studies (this is a servicing school, it has no students of its own).   In 1994, the Federal Government took over the polytechnic from Edo State Government (Remember that at this time, Bendel State was split into Edo and Delta States).

High academic standard

The polytechnic has very high academic standard recognized nationally and internationally.  Since 2009, Auchi Polytechnic has consistently been rated amongst the top twenty universities in Nigeria by Webometrics. It became number eleven that year (2009) and by 2010 it moved to the 10th  position. By 2011, it became number two.

Amongst the polytechnics, it has consistently remained the first in Nigeria, in West Africa, and the second in the whole of Africa. The graduates of the school have distinguished themselves in their chosen fields.

In business, finance, engineering, science, art and design; they hold the commanding heights everywhere. In competitions, the high standards show glaringly. The polytechnic hold: the first prize in Polytechnic Expo of Engineering Designs and Fabrications (2008 and 2012); the first prize in the Minna exhibition for crafts and woodworks (2004); the NUXART Prize for Art

Works; and made a good showing at the Federal Ministry of Education organized exposition for all tertiary institutions in the country. Our performance informed our invitation by the Federal Government to exhibit our works again at the first African legislative summit held in 2013. At student level, our students have also distinguished themselves among their peers.

For instance, at a national debate organized for tertiary institutions in Abuja in 2009, Auchi Polytechnic won the first prize.  The following year, our students came second at the debate hosted by University of Ibadan, where one of our representatives emerged as the best female speaker.

In the area of environmental impact, Auchi Polytechnic embodies Federal Government commitment to providing entrepreneurial skills to students, as both short and long-term solution to unemployment and under-employment.  No wonder, the institution has been designated a centre of excellence for entrepreneurship studies.   Closely related to this is the development of flexible skills initiative of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL).

Dwindling interest in polytechnic education

The society is yet to come to terms with the invaluable contribution of polytechnic education to

sustainable industrial development.  Sometime soon, it is hoped that the Nigerian society will

come to terms with the fact that the industrial and technological development which the country so desperately needs can be provided by technical skills which polytechnics are in the best position to give.

If we must grow as a nation technologically, we must invest in polytechnic education.

Ensuring standards in the institution

We adhere very strictly to minimum entry requirements; we sanction certificate forgers and examination cheats. We ensure that our lecturers give the best to the students in terms of quality instructions; we also ensure that the non-teaching staff provide first rate services. To complement this, we also provide a clement environment for learning and recreation.

What would you like to be remembered for after your exit?

I will want to be remembered as a head of an institution who brought the institution from the low level that she met it to become the best in Nigeria because Auchi Polytechnic is the best polytechnic in Nigeria and West Africa today. I want to be remembered as somebody who has provided leadership and who has followed the vision and mission set out from the onset. I want to be remembered as somebody who has instituted a culture of discipline, of academics, of excellence in the polytechnic.