ON Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu officially signed a bill to upgrade the Lagos State Polytechnic, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, and Michael Otedola College of Primary Education into two state-owned universities.
Lagos has gone down the same path the Federal Government went when they decided to transform Yaba College of Technology into a university. That the Federal Government did this does not make it an error in judgement. Yaba College of Technology has always been recognised as a prestigious institution among tertiary institutions in Nigeria but, for some reason, the Buhari-led government felt that the college had outgrown its polytechnic status and must be named a university. This is the error of both state government and federal governments; 'college', 'polytechnic', and 'university' should not be titles or statuses bestowed on institutions as they grow in academic stature.
According to Mr Sanwo-Olu, the state government believes that it is doing a good job at ensuring that what is best is the only thing that is done for Lagos. But I think what is best for Lagos is correcting the long-standing erroneous idea that universities are more important than colleges or polytechnics. The point must not be missed that polytechnics and colleges of education have peculiar characteristics and they are equally important as universities in the academic ecosystem of any country.
Governor Sanwo-Olu, in his speech at the signing ceremony, to me, related the perception that he was doing the existing staff and students of these institutions a favour. Truth be told, polytechnics and colleges have cultures that must be preserved and celebrated.
If there is a negative bias against these institutions, it is the collective responsibility of both government and governing councils to promote the values and contributions of colleges and polytechnics in our society. If the state government and the federal government want to upgrade colleges and polytechnics, they should invest in the scholarly and technical works of these institutions rather than naming them as honourary universities.
