The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has granted accreditation to the Federal Polytechnic Bida, Niger State, to run 37 programs, just as the board also approved additional streams for 13, out of the 37 accredited programmes.

This was made known in a letter signed by the Director of Polytechnic Programmes NBTE, Architect Ngbede Ogah and addressed to the Rector of the Polytechnic, Abubakar Abdul Dzukogi, made available on Wednesday in Minna, stressing that the accreditation would last for a period of five years after which they would be scheduled for re-accreditation.

Reacting to the development, the Polytechnic’s Director of Academic Planning, Dr Femi Paul Fashagba attributed the success of the accreditation exercise to the proper planning and commitment of the management.

“We saw the accreditation coming and we started planning for it in 2020. We took major steps to ensure that when we eventually face it, we were not going to fail any programme,” said Fashagba .

He also hinted that the Rector, Federal Polytechnic Bida, Dr Abubakar Abdul Dzukogi had approved the release of over N100 million for direct procurement of equipment and other necessary items to ensure a hitch-free exercise.

Fashagba noted that a mock accreditation exercise was conducted by the Academic Planning Unit to ascertain the level of preparedness of the departments offering the programmes and to ensure that all equipment was procured, saying, “the mock exercise assisted the polytechnic to identify and address its areas of challenge and later accounted for the success of the accreditation exercise.”

According to him, “the approval for additional streams for some of the accredited programmes meant that more students could be admitted into such programmes, thereby translating to increased students’ admission processes, increased participation in National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), as well as providing opportunities for the institution to fulfil its statutory mandate.”

While appreciating the Rector for his support towards the success of the exercise, Dr Fashagba encouraged staff to continue to put in their best for the continued success of all programmes run by the polytechnic.

He expressed optimism that the accreditation of programmes would strengthen the institution’s academic standards and position it for better performance in the comity of tertiary institutions in the country.

Similarly, in his reaction to the new development, Rector, Dr Abubakar Abdul Dzukogi expressed delight over the success of the exercise and pledged to do more to improve the quality of programmes run by the polytechnic.

He said, despite the paucity of funds, the management was able to mobilise resources to ensure that the required equipment was procured for all programmes scheduled for re-accreditation and accreditation exercises.

“It is a landmark achievement that, for the very first time in recent history, the polytechnic is granted accreditation in all the programmes it presented for accreditation without any hitch,” Dzukogi declared.

He, therefore, commended the NBTE Executive Secretary, Professor Idris Bugaje and his entire staff for their support and cooperation during the exercise.

Dzukogi, equally acknowledged the efforts of Dr Fashagba Paul Femi, Deans, HODs and other critical stakeholders throughout the period the exercise lasted.

Earlier, the NBTE’s Team Leader, Dr Rufai Ibrahim said: “the exercise is a quality assurance one where experts from various fields are assembled to assess the standard of teaching and learning facilities available in the institution.”

Meanwhile, the accredited programmes include; ND Computer Engineering Technology, ND and HND Chemical Engineering Technology, ND and HND Electrical Engineering (Electronic and Telecom as well as Power and Machines options), HND Agric and Bio-Environmental Engineering and others