No fewer than 459 students of
the Federal Polytechnic, Unwana
Afikpo, Ebonyi State have been
expelled by the management following their alleged
involvement in exam malpractices, fighting, cult- related offenses and gaining admission into the institution with fake certificates.

The Rector of the institution Dr. Francis Otunta, who disclosed this during the 12th convocation of the institution at its premises, said the polytechnic promotes discipline to stop students from
cheating during exams.

According to Otunta, "In a bid to maintain academic excellence, we promote stringent discipline
so that our students reconsider cutting corners during
examination, since no short cut is a good one. The structure we have in place also discourages
undesirable learner behaviour so that we may enjoy peaceful coexistence as one big team,
where no one is oppressed or marginalised.”

"To achieve this, since I assumed office as the Rector of this premier institution, we have expelled 210 students involved in examination misconduct alone,
230 who got admission with fake or doctored certificates and 19 students for such misdemeanors as fighting, cult-related offences and others, all within my tenure as Rector. Thus, we have sanctioned a total number of 451 students for deviant or antisocial behaviour."

He called on the Federal Government to upgrade the
polytechnic to a federal university, adding that the
institution community and other major stakeholders in the education sector in the state considers this need strategically and patriotically expedient to
immortalise Dr Akanu Ibiam.

He said that Ibiam's contemporaries such as Dr
Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Michael Okpara, Ahmadu Bello, Michael Ajasin and Ladoke Akintola has universities named after them, adding that
Ibiam remained the only one who has not had a university named after him.

The Rector stated that the country is in great need of more universities considering the over a million candidates that sit for Unified Tertiary Matriculation
Examination (UTME) into the federal, state and private
universities in the country.

The Minister for Education Prof, Ruqayyatu Rufa’i represented by the Director of Finance, National
Board for Technical Education, Mr. Suleiman Isa, said Nigerian vision to join the top 20 economies of the world by the 2020 will be an illusion if she
fails to lay a solid foundation for technological education.

She said the Federal Government's visitation panel to
Federal polytechnics and Colleges of Education is a follow-up of the effort of the ministry in promoting accountability and transparency in the judicious use
of public funds and scarce resources.

The Myschoolcomm Team.