IN the next three years, the Distance Learning Centre of the University of Ibadan hopes to have got at least 35,000 learners on its platform doing one programme or the other.
It currently has about 11,000 students.
This is one of the milestones the new director of the centre, Professor Oyesoji Aremu, hopes to achieve as he builds on the legacy of his immediate predecessor, Professor Bayo Okunade.
Professor Aremu assumed duties as the new director of the centre barely three months ago, but he says he has, among other things, set his eyes on raising the ante by transforming the Ibadan DLC to a centre of excellence.
In an interview with Tribune Education on Monday, Aremu said the facility would now engage in conducting researches in the field of Open Distance Learning (ODL).
“In Ibadan DLC, we don’t just want to be doing teaching and learning; we also want to engage in research. There are researches that can be conducted in the area of ODL for us to be able to know what the challenges of ODL are – and we have people that can do this,” he enthused.
He said the centre would utilise its Learner Support Officers and Academic Advisers, who, according to him, are all currently on their doctoral programmes.
“We’ll make use of them. We’ll partner with the Research Management Office of the university (UI) for us to be able to work together on this,” he added.
The new DLC director also spoke about his determination to, as much as possible, “get the DLC calendar right” in such a way that there would be zero tolerance for elongation of learners’ programmes.
He said, “Arising from that, we’ve given them a calendar (for the 2016/17 session) which will end by December this year. Come next year, 2017/2018, by February we should be able to start a new session.
“By the time we finish 2017/2018, God helping us, we will have normalised things, so we won’t have the issue of long-term programmes or five-year programme running to six, seven years.
“Students should be able to come and finish their programmes at the appropriate time.”
He also said the centre had approached the National Universities Commission with nine programmes (for accreditation, three of them new), including Nursing, Sociology and Computer Education.
“We want to make sure that we work more to attract more learners. I think there was a point in time that DLC in Ibadan had more than 17,000 learners; but right now we have about 11,000. So, we think that in the next three years, we should be able to have about 35,000 learners on the programmes,” he said.