Ibadan Polytechnic Secures Accreditation of Courses, Produces Ventilators

The management of The Polytechnic, Ibadan is basking in the euphoria of a N200 million grant released to the institution by the Governor Seyi Makinde's administration that facilitated the procurement of equipment and upgrading of facilities for the accreditation of courses of the institution.

According to the Rector, Prof. Kazeem Adekunle Adebiyi, the grant led to full accreditation of some courses offered in the polytechnic by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and other professional bodies.

The Rector, however, lauded the Governor and Moderator to the polytechnic for the release of the funds, which he said, came seamlessly after 11 years of non-release of grant to the institution by successive administrations in the state. Through the grant, Adebiyi added that the management was able to acquire necessary equipment and upgrade the facilities to secure full accreditation for 13 academic programmes, as well as for three professional programmes.

Also, the polytechnic, according to the Rector, was granted accreditation to run Higher National Diploma (HND) in Mechatronics Engineering, the first of its kind in the country. As part of the polytechnic's contribution to the fight against the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19), the institution, the Rector pointed out had fabricated ventilators to take care of coronavirus and post-COVID-19 exigencies.

He disclosed that the equipment was fabricated and produced by the lecturers and National Diploma (ND) students of the Department of Engineering of the polytechnic.

"The professionally-tested ventilators, which cost only N2 million against the over N20 million similar equipment is procured from overseas, will take adequate care of COVID-19 patients in the country. The polytechnic also fabricated smart hand washing machines to prevent spread of the pandemic," the Rector added.

Adebiyi said: "We are just using this avenue to appreciate the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde for what they have done for us with the letter from NBTE that the polytechnic passed all its accreditation. We are very happy. When we looked at the records, the last time the institution benefitted from accreditation grant from the state government was in 2009 and when the present government came on board, we were bothered because between 15 and 16 of our academic programmes were due for accreditation.

"When I said we should meet the governor on this, my management team asked if I was sure of making any success since the institution had not received grant from the state government for several years, but I insisted that we should make a try, and surprisingly, the governor magnanimously approved our request without any stress."

In their reaction Messrs Kamarudeen Olaiya and Olukotun Tolulope, both lecturers at the Mechatronics Department, said the mechanical ventilators were produced to complement the efforts of the government in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to them, the equipment or machines had been tested and certified suitable to enhance breathing of both children and adults with respiratory problems by Dr. Adebayo Oluwaseun of the University College Hospital (UCH). On the cost of producing each of the ventilators, the Rector, however, appealed to the federal and state governments to give priority attention to the development of local technology in tertiary institutions "in order to boost the nation's economy, generate youth employment and attain self-sufficiency for the nation."