PTI Matriculates 1,896 Students, To Award B.Tech Degree To Its Graduates

The Principal and Chief Executive Officer of Petroleum Training Institution, PTI, Prof Sunny Iyuke on Friday said plans are under way for the institution to start awarding Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech.) to its graduates as against the present Higher National Diploma (HND).

Prof. Iyuke disclosed this at the 2019 combined matriculation ceremony of full time and part time students of 2018/2019 academy session held at the PTI conference centre, Effurun, Delta state.

He said that the proposal for the awarding of B.Tech degree would be presented to the institution’s Governing Council and to the National University Commission (NUC) soon for consideration.

“Insurance of B. Tech will not be a difficult thing for us here in PTI…. You know we have the facilities that no university in the country has and if you look at the mandate given to PTI 47 years ago, the institution is to provide courses of instruction, training and research in technology and development of technologist and techicians.

“If the mandate allows us, it mean I should walk to NUC to accredit us and that means graduates of PTI would have both middle skills and high skill and they would be accepted in any country of the world because they are Bachelor”.

Besides, he disclosed that the institution is collaborating with the University of Port Harcourt to run Post HND, leading to the award of Bachelor of Engineering (B. Eng.) and Master in Engineering which commenced since last year.

Iyuke said about 2,800 candidates applied for admission to pursue different careers in the Higher National Diploma (HND), National Diploma (ND) and Certificate programmes during the session.

The principal who administered the institution’s oath on the students said the students fulfilled the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the PTI internal requirements.

He said, “Out of this number, 1,896 candidates were qualified for admission by the standards of the JAMB as well as the PTI where applicable.

Iyuke said that PTI was vigorously pursuing a digitisation project in line with the global trend in Information Communication Technology (ICT).

While congratulating the 1,896 matriculating student, the institution’s Chief Executive charged the students to be creative, innovative, resourceful, focused and hard working to justify the confidence reposed in them.

Also, he urged the students to shun examination mispractices, certificate forgery, stealing, physical and sexual assault, cultism and drug peddling among other social vices adding that student caught or involved in unlawful protest and assembly on campus would be sanction.

Prof Iyuke told BigPen Online after the matriculation,  that the B.Tech degree would not affect the duration of academic courses for students, saying two years for OND, one year for industrial training and additional two year for HND courses are all part of the B.Tech to be awarded by the institution.

He said that the institution would also allow for a break for students who wish to break with diploma degree (OND) but a fully completion of courses would earned the students a B. Tech degree, he added.

According to him, the only difference would be to redraw up the institution’s curriculum to fit in with the courses, and final year project work which would be different from the current HND project which is purely mechanical but would now involved science.

The Petroleum Training Institution was established by ACT No 37 of 1972 and subsequently amended by ACT No. 52 of 1975, and PTI ACT CAP P16, 2014. PTI, for 47 years running has been the hub for Petroleum expertise with a reputation for providing hands-on, high quality technical education in petroleum disciplines for the oil and gas sector.