Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has condemned the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE)’s plan to outsource its quality assurance responsibilities, describing it as an attempt to commercialise the regulation of polytechnics in Nigeria.
In a statement released yesterday, ASUP president Shammah S. Kpanja expressed the union’s rejection of the policy, which he stated undermined the credibility and integrity of the accreditation process for technical and vocational education institutions.
The policy, which reportedly has the approval of the Minister of Education, seeks to transfer NBTE’s accreditation and quality assurance responsibilities to private vendors.
The NBTE cited lack of personnel as justification for the move, noting that it currently regulates 789 institutions across the country.
However, ASUP insists that outsourcing such a critical function to private firms would create conflicts of interest, compromise standards, and jeopardise the confidentiality of sensitive institutional data.
Kpanja explained that the core of NBTE’s mandate encompasses a quality assurance framework primarily focused on the accreditation and reaccreditation of programmes in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
“This responsibility is currently the target of this outsourcing policy. This unusual policy calls into question the continued relevance of the NBTE as a public institution,” he added.
He warned that the union would collaborate with key stakeholders to resist the move, asserting that allowing private consultants, who are profit-driven entities, to handle accreditation would weaken regulatory oversight and increase financial burdens on institutions already struggling with insufficient funding.
He stated, “The key justification provided by the NBTE for pursuing this policy is that it currently regulates 789 institutions within the nation’s TVET sector and is overwhelmed by the number of institutions in its regulatory portfolio.
“This issue has been raised repeatedly by our union over the years, culminating in demands and current legislative efforts aimed at unbundling the NBTE and establishing a dedicated commission to regulate the tertiary division of TVET, in the form of a National Commission for Polytechnics, to align with the other two tiers of tertiary education in the country.”
The ASUP President reiterated the union’s demand for the unbundling of the NBTE and the establishment of a dedicated National Commission for Polytechnics, akin to the regulatory bodies overseeing universities and colleges of education.
He recalled that at a recent stakeholders’ meeting convened by the NBTE on March 4, 2025, participants had rejected the outsourcing proposal and instead advocated for the digitisation of quality assurance processes.
The union further demanded a rollback of the outsourcing/commercialisation policy, a fast-tracking of the migration to digital platforms for quality assurance activities with enforceable deadlines for institutions, and the provision of adequate technical support and access to appropriate funding intervention platforms to facilitate the digitisation process.
