Communique for The 1st Economic Summit of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti Held On The 22nd February, 2022​

This communiqué is a fall out of the 1^st Economic summit held in the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti between 21^st and 22^nd of February, 2022.

The theme of the summit is Motivation, Productivity and Institutional Progress: The Challenges of Harnessing the Potentials of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti.

Altogether, 1 keynote address, 5 lead papers and 10 position papers were presented by intellectuals and the following were noted as issue to the public as communiqué.

• The hard times we find ourselves in, has made critical stakeholders to come together to brainstorm on the possible ways of improving the revenue generation capacity of this Polytechnic for effective and efficient service delivery.
• The 11^th Council set up a Committee to organise an Economic Summit, as a necessary first step towards improving the revenue generation of the institution in order to amongst other things put the institution in a better stead within the Nigerian State and beyond.
• Perennial paucity of funds have been aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, among other factors.
• The Polytechnic has the manpower to engage in this process of unlocking the potentials in the system.
• It is imperative that we set-up Internally- Generated Revenue (IGR) units.
• Research activities necessary in facilitating the economic fortunes of the system should be embarked upon.
• Identification of sources of (IGR) Internally Generated Revenue within the system which include CEC, Digital Library, ICT, Poly Venture, CEDCS, DUDAP and some Department were highlighted.
• Strategizing on better performance of IGR sources within the system.
• Government should impose restriction on importation of Glass and Ceramic to encourage local production.
• Training and retraining of staff for better performance.
• Partnership with relevant and established industries.
• Patenting of our outstanding products/outputs should be pursued with vigour.
• Establishment of Entrepreneurship village to co-ordinate all related enterprises.
• The Library should venture into some fee-based services that can enhance IGR for the Institution.
• Departments / Units should be structured in a way to contribute to the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the institution.
• Consultancy unit of the institution should be established to harmonize all consultancy services and the rest.
• Polytechnic should focus on training engineers, senior technicians and other highly-skilled workers with practical experience, rather than pursing-academic, theoretical studies.
• With the quantum of Ph.D holders in the Polytechnic system, efforts must be geared towards empowering the Polytechnic system to mount post graduate courses to harness the potentials in our egg heads.
• There should be a synergy between the technical college and our Polytechnics with a view of training skilled students and instructors. Graduates in the Technical college can be more suitable to achieve the mandate of the Polytechnic.
• Frantic efforts by the various tiers of government must be geared towards adequate funding of the Polytechnic Education in order to achieve its core mandate to the fullest.
• To ensure optimum productivity in the Polytechnic system, research must be prioritized and geared towards obtaining research grant which should be judiciously utilized.
• For Polytechnic system to compete favourably well with the best global practice, its curriculum must be regularly reviewed with a view to regulating national and global contemporary issues and challenges.
• For any progress to be recorded in the Polytechnic education, the place of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) must not be undermined.
• Polytechnic with its large expanse of land has the potential of enhancing productivity if the land can be used optimally for various forms of agriculture e.g. crop production, livestock etc. This will mitigate the problem of land encroachment.
• To boost funding of the Polytechnic education toward optimum productivity, management must always harness resources from national and international organization like World Bank, TetFund, and other international donors among others.
• Efficient Personnel Management is seen as a critical factor in the attainment of objectives of the Polytechnic hence, Polytechnic by itself cannot meet the goal of optimal productivity in the absence of personnel. Hence the need to motivate and train and retrain staff.
• Intensifying efforts on commercial ventures.
• Collaboration of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in the delivery of high quality, cost effective higher education e.g. Students’ Hostel accommodation.
• Approaching Financial Institutions to discharge their social responsibility like donation of buildings, textbooks, teaching and learning aids.
• There should be synergy between the Alumni Association and the Institution for Developmental projects.
• The need for Federal government to scale up its allocation to Polytechnics was advocated.
• State and local government funding of Polytechnics education should be encouraged.
• Renewable energy as a veritable source of revenue should be emphasized.
• For quality and higher productivity, the role of workers, labour unions and good leadership should be well defined.
• There must be Team work for quality management and higher productivity.
• The relevance of soft skills, communication skills, and digital skills are critical and necessary for enhancing growth, productivity, and revenue generation.
• A team to look into the potentials of IGR sources within the system should be set up
• Projects initiated by the Departments should not be taken away from them but expanded with a role to be played by the department and adequately remunerated.

In conclusion, it is our belief that if the management of the Polytechnic can look into most these suggestions for improvement of revenue generation unit, there will be a tremendous improvement in the financial status of the institution.

Also, see: Economic Summit Canvasses Adequate Funding for Polytechnics

Furthermore, the summit suggested that the institution should set-up an implementation committee to fast track all these suggestions; a new dawn of prosperity will be ushered in.

Also, see: Stakeholders Advocate Improved Funding for Polytechnic Education