National Board For Technical Education (NBTE) has raised the alarm over the proliferation of illegal health institutions and colleges across the country, saying it is working with the Department of State Services (DSS) to arrest the proprietors.
Executive Secretary (ES) of NBTE, Prof. Idris Bugaje, who raise the alarm, yesterday, in Kaduna, said one of the proprietors of such illegal colleges was arrested on Wednesday after he attempted to enrol his students for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.
Bugaje, who was addressing provosts and proprietors of health institutions and colleges, as well as registrars of health professional bodies with NBTE management, said the board was determined to rid Nigeria of illegal health institutions, as some of them were under investigation.
The ES, while noting that the meeting was called to understand the challenges faced by the proprietors towards running a legal system, disclosed that one of the earlier recognised challenges was the required guarantee deposit of N100 million by those seeking to establish health institutions.
He said: “I am happy to inform you that, yesterday, at the management meeting of NBTE, we looked at the issues affecting the health colleges, and management has decided to reduce one of the major impediments; this issue of bank guarantee of N100 million. We have listened to complaints from most of you and we have now reduced the bank deposit guarantee to N25 million.
“There are several illegal health institutions across the country. Some of them are swindling students, collecting money from them and giving them unrecognised certificates. This is of great concern to all of us, not only at the NBTE.”
