The failure of many private universities and other higher education institutions in providing higher education to students due to generalized lack of quality and rigour has also been a major problem - for several years those institutions were awarding degrees to thousands of people who were spread into the economically active population. Some higher education institutions, in particular from the private and polytechnic sector, have been regarded as true diploma mills. In the following decades after their creation in the 1970s and 1980s, the polytechnic institutions didn't assume their specific role as tertiary education vocational schools, which were created to award practical diplomas in more technical or basic fields.