‘PTI to Award B.Tech Degrees Soon’

Sylvester Idowu in Warri

The Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) may in the near future begin to award Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degrees, against the present Higher National Diploma (HND).

The Principal of the institute, Professor Esayegbemu Iyuke said this recently during the matriculation ceremony of Full Time and School of Industrial Continuing Education students of the 2018/2019 academic session, at the PTI Conference Centre, Effurun, Delta State.

According to him, the proposal will soon be presented to the institution’s governing council and to the National Universities Commission (NUC), adding that the institution will get the chance to use the facilities amounting to about N93 billion provided by the Petroleum Training Development Fund (PTDF) when it came up with its upgrade programme a while back.

The PTI president, who described the move as a laudable development, said most countries across the world do not recognise or award HND certificates.

He explained that the disparity between HND and degree graduates in job places will no longer surface once the certificate issue is achieved.

“I’m sure our students will like it, instead of coming out with HND, not that it is not good, they come out with B.Tech, they will be bolder, they will appreciate themselves more and of course that again will give us the opportunity to use the huge facility and huge amount of money the PTDF has spent in the institute.

“If you remember, PTDF came up with an upgrade programme, where it bought so many equipment worth, about N93 billion to the institute. Now we are not able to use all of them.

“If we were giving PHD for example, I know we will use all of them, but we are not there. With B.Tech, we will put all the facilities to use. That becomes the educational pathway for PTI and every other thing plugs in,” Iyuke said.

Asked if the duration of the institute’s programmes may be affected, the don said already, students of PTI spend five years to get HND certificates just like every standard engineering programme in universities; hence the time will be the same.

However, he stated that the institute will only need to “redraw its curriculum which will not be very different” from what it has been doing.

“The nature of the final year project will be different. At the moment, it is purely just HND, which is very mechanical. Now, it will be mechanical and some level of science. They have the science, you just ask the students to put it into the project and it is fully bachelor.”

Addressing the matriculating students, the principal said of the 2,800 candidates that applied for admission in National Diploma (ND), HND and other certificate courses, only 1,896 were qualified.

He urged them to adhere to the school’s rules, be innovative and focused all through their stay, just as the school will do its best to support them.

A student of Electrical/ Electronic Engineering Department, Iwerumor Jonathan, who spoke with THISDAY, expressed confidence that “the school has the capacity to bring out the best” in him, adding that the assignments and reports he has had to do have not been easy.