THE registered student population of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) has hit 254,000, the vice chancellor, Professor Abdalla Adamu, disclosed this in Abuja.
The number, according to the vice chancellor, is distributed across the 77 study centres in the country, touching the states, local government areas and the six geopolitical zones.
“I can confidently confirm to you that the total registered student population is now 254,000 scattered across the 77 study centres in the country,” Professor Adamu said.
The NOUN boss explained to Economic Confidential that having the 77 study centres meant that some states had more than one or two study centres, depending on demand, adding that Abuja had about eight centres.
“Some organisations come to us and ask for study centres and we call them specialised centres, notably Police, Immigration and the Nigerian Prisons Service while some states have community study centres,” he added.
He noted that at the inception of NOUN, there were misgivings and mistrust about the institution, adding that many people did not consider it as being credible and worthy.
He added that students seeking admission to conventional universities were increasing by the day, as according to him, almost one million students want to gain admission into universities yearly, through the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
He emphasised that the influx to the National Open University had become so enormous that the state study centres could no more cope with the population, which he said, gave rise to requests for community study centres by some states, noting that the requests were mostly from the southern parts of the country.
Meanwhile, the university authorities have sacked two companies manning its Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and had replaced them with an in-house team of IT experts, thereby saving the institution about 80 per cent revenue.
“Well as for how much I have saved for doing away with consultants, I would not tell you that because that is our secret. When I took over, I saw that the entire Information Technology infrastructures were outsourced to two companies. One was called Cyberspace and the other called Emerging Platforms.
“They were the ones running the entire system. As an ICT person myself, because I spent about 15 years teaching System Analysis at masters degree level in Bayero University, Kano. Now, how can I have a Department of Computer Science, and the Dean of that department was the immediate Vice President of Nigerian Computer Society, a professor of Robotics and other talents in ICT in these university, yet, outsourcing all these to another agency, I said no it cannot happen!” he stated.
He said because of the funds “being generated through the payment of tuition by students the institution is now able to push out quality materials for students and also planning to shoot this into tablets, so that we have what we call “I-NOUN”.
“So this I-NOUN will be a complete package of courses. So we cut out these outsources and created our own services and it is working. So the key to sustainability in any Open Distance Learning (ODL) is independence,” he stated.
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