Ilesa City Polytechnic: A Case of Unaccredited Institution Duping Unsuspecting Students

By Alli Ibrahim

Pedagogy, the most appreciated legacy any parents/guardians can give to their children/wards. Every responsible parent considered their children’s education as necessity, irrespective of their economic status. The hayloft and repository of successful knowledge is not excluded to the four walls of the classroom where formal teachings are enacted and thought for the advantage of every aspiring student. Since the knowledge is passed in a formal setting (schools) where parents are financially and constitutionally committed to the contract, it will amount to a breach of contract should any part betray the interest of the other. At advantage is the school authority with lesser prerogative mostly in revenue generation. Unlike secondary schools, the chance for parents meetings is slim in higher institutions. Hence, the students are left to agitate for themselves through the Students` Union Government (SUG) executives while those with no or suspended union are tamed. One of those tamed schools is Ilesa City Polytechnic, Ilase, Osun State.

Ilesa City Polytechnic

Ilesha City Polytechnic is located in Ilase area of Ilesa, Osun State. The polytechnic is a private institution founded two years ago and currently running her 2nd session. In one of my conversation with the management of the school, the school was best described as hybrid institution in Nigeria. But disappointedly, the oral and body language of the management revealed the promotion of a unaccredited citadel of learning. The revelation was made at the orientation ground held recently in the school premise. The aspiring students retorted and were calmed with juicy lies of getting it accredited soon. Haaa! What are Nigerians turning to in the name of getting money? Of what merit is certificate without official recognition?

Currently, the school is operating two faculties and seven departments: Faculty of Business and Communication and Faculty of Science and Technology. Mass Communication, Accounting, Business Administration are subs of Faculty of Business and Communication. Under science and technology, we have electrical and electronic engineering, Science Laboratory Technology, Computer Science. What stand to be the fate of products of those departments in a non accredited institution?

Nigerians should be wary and enquire more the legality of the school. The porosity of our education ministry and negligence of her management are lubricants evil`s striving in Nigeria. These failures coupled with lack of proper monitoring are responsible for destroying thousands destinies in a moribund citadel of learning. The school board is insensitive of the aspirations of each students of ICP. The bottom line is money.

Many students of the institution are putting themselves up by their bootstrap, then how much can one quantify the extent of damage attached to an unaccredited institution?

The cases of incessant announcement of uninformed of secondary levies are alarming. The levy`s adjectives varies and are situational. Because there is no students` union and the few agitators are afraid of been a ‘scape goat’. That accounted and paves way for more evils to strive. Lam has seen the fool before it raids food from his hand. For instance, the institution urges students to pay entrepreneurs fee that students will be exposed to various apprentice skills but reneged the pledge, using mouth to cut beef into soup by throwing dust into our eyes.

One of the students has this to say “Library payment is zero. Our library is a block without content, building with banner of library but empty as dry vessel. We were urged to pay ICT fee with the promise that we will be able to have access to computer and we will be abreast to different software in accordance to our departments. Though, to get the money is not easy but head of tortoise emerge from shell. Eventually, we see neither computers nor software”

“Love others as yourself” substantiated by the two prevailed Scriptures . Ilesa City Polytechnic’s management and the workers do not have affection for our aspirations. I can corroborate it with their passionless reactions and their systematic insensitive to our predicament. During interrogation, they usually speak favored management and totally indifferent to our complaints. It is not their fault; they are protecting their means of living. Either grass or grace will be theirs eventuality, that depends on their action toward success of the students”.

“Be in shoe of others for you to know their predicament” this is the decorum of human passiveness of other’s situation. If the son and daughter of the rector and the lecturers are in the school, the possible eventuality of students and their parents’ intercourse will be discerned by them. Their drastic requesting for money may possibly lead to a trembling pillar that firmed building of parent relationship with their children. The secondary levies are irrational, unjustifiable and should be resisted because it sour and promote frosty relationship between parents and their children/wards.

Nigeria state of earning has progressed from mouth of lion to it abdomen especially for the poor and absolute certainty is the divergent of student’s cradle of money. Some students engage in laborer sponsoring themselves with their steamed sweat. Will their souls ever forgive the school should they be awarded an unrecognized certificate?

I hereby appealed to the stakeholders to rescue those students by questioning the credibility of the school and her pilots. The ministry of education, the state and the federal should interfere to clean our environment of fake and unofficial certificates. Those students` time and money must not be wasted. Whether we like it or not, the consequences bounce back to all of us, not far but very soon. But before then, we will never fold our arms while evil persist in our society. Without playing to the gallery, our subsequent article will light the biography of the stakeholders promoting such institution to know whether their children are public of their school.