About 50 academic staff of Edo State Polytechnic, Usen have benefited from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TefFUND) training and research grants.
Disclosing this during meeting with with pressmen at the institution, the Rector of the polytechnic, Professor Abiodun Falodun said that many non-teaching staff have -been awarded TefFUND grants for both local and international conferences.
He also disclosed that the polytechnic remains one of the most innovative and high profile institution in Nigeria, courtesy of Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki.
According to him, this was borne out of Mr. Obaseki’s desire to reposition the institution to a world class polytechnic, realizing that Technical and Vocational Education is the bedrock of any nation.
The development, he said is not only a major milestone, but another expression of far reaching reforms by the present state government.
“As the only state polytechnic, we are determined to partner with the state to drive the initiative of Governor Obaseki,” he said.
Speaking on the giant strides of his administration in the polytechnic, Professor Falodun said that despite the COVID-19 induced challenges, the polytechnic has maintained an uninterrupted academic calendar, while it has taken very bold steps to entrench a culture of of academic and research excellence in the system, with the institution of many significant workshops, lectures and seminars to enhance human capacity development.
He said that the drive to achieve full accreditation of academic programmes in the polytechnic necessitated interventions in the procurement of all necessary and basic equipment as well as facility upgrade in order to meet the NBTE requirements, which thanking the state governor for his support in that direction.
“We have successfully used the triple helix model in driving our academic programmes in order to produce job ready and market ready graduates.
”On a yearly basis, the Nigeria Bottling Company (NBC) requests 15 best graduating students from the department of Mechanical and Electrical for employment and training,” he noted
The Rector disclosed that he won a highly competitive national research fund grant to execute advance research in the identification and development of potential drug for the management of COVID-19, a research, he added would be executed in the University of Benin, in collaboration with partner agencies.
According to him, the polytechnic has concluded plans to assess a#20,000 agric research grants, courtesy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Edo Polytechnic, he said was the only polytechnic among 20 institutions that won 2020 edition of the Carleton University and Canadian government grant for the gender design in Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) programmes addressing challenges predominantly faced by women in the low-and-middle-income countries.