439 Prison Inmates Studying NOUN Programmes – VC

The Vice Chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu, Monday boasted that his institution remained the best in terms of human capital development in the country.

Adamu revealed that NOUN currently has 439 prison inmates as students in its study centres spread across prisons in the country.

He made the disclosure in Abuja during  a National Advocacy Programme on Open and Distance Learning.

Prof. Adamu, who said the University offers free education to indigent but brilliant students and prison inmates, said NOUN currently boasts of over 500,000 students studying various programmes that are approved by relevant authorities in the country.

While saying the University has continued to make several academic exploits, Adamu said the recent convocation of the institution where over 22,000 students graduated is an eloquent testimony of NOUN’s enormous contribution to human capital development in Nigeria.

In a keynote address during national advocacy programme, which has its theme as “Access to University Education through the Open Distance Learning,” Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, called on Nigerians to take advantage of NOUN programmes .

“The Open and Distance Learning has been a useful platform in contemporary times because it has become flexible, as it affords the people who cannot be absorbed into conventional universities opportunities to  also benefit from formal education,” the minister, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Sonny Echono, said.

he minister said the advocacy of spreading good news of the benefits of Open and Distance Learning has further become imperative as available conventional universities cannot admit millions of Nigerian youth in need of admission.

“The speculative population of Nigerian youth cannot be less than a hundred million. Thus, the public and private universities do not have the carrying capacity to absorb this huge number.

“We are left with no other choice, than to widen access to university education through the advocacy on Open and Distance Learning,” the minister stated.