The
Vice-Chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN),
Prof. Abdalla Adamu, has revealed that a Nigerian prison inmate will
soon enroll for a PhD programme in the institution.
Prof. Abdalla Adamu, NOUN, Vice-Chancellor
A prison inmate will soon enroll for a PhD programme in the
National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), the institution’s
Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Abdalla Adamu has said.
Adamu disclosed this in his address at the opening ceremony of the
53rd Meeting and 30th Anniversary of the Committee of Deans of
Post-Graduate Schools (CDPGS) in Nigerian Universities on Monday in
Abuja.
According to Abdalla, prison inmates and juvenile who are willing
and qualified are given free education as part of NOUN’s corporate
social responsibility.
“We have 84 study centres including the prisons; NOUN is the
only university that allows prison inmates completely totally free
education because that is the opportunity they have to learn.
“Right now, we have somebody who has finished his Masters and
he is about to embark on PhD and he is still behind bars. We have
juvenile-young people who one reason or the other are caught up and
locked up.
“NOUN is the largest university in the West African sub-region
and one of the biggest in the world with over 200, 000 students.’’
Adamu urged the committee to fashion out a mechanism for improving the global ranking of Nigerian universities.
The vice-chancellor regretted that Nigerian academics hardly
uploaded their research content; hence the poor online visibility of
Nigerian universities.
Adamu said that unless a university established a strong online presence, it would not be ranked.
He said that NOUN complied with the National Universities
Commission (NUC)’s guidelines and had all its programme duly accredited
and wondered why the institution’s products were denied post graduate
admission.
“Part of the major steps taken by the university management
when I assumed office as vice-chancellor was to bring all our programmes
in tandem with the regulatory ambience of NUC.
“With that, therefore, it would be unfair for any institution
under the supervision of the same commission to deny recognition of NOUN
certificates and deny our products opportunities for post-graduate
studies.
“I therefore urge you to draw attention to all the deans in
your respective faculties to this challenge faced by our products in
their pursuit of post-graduate studies,’’ he said.
In his address, Dr Samiala Mande, Dean, School of Post-Graduate
Studies, NOUN, said there was need for Nigerian universities to catch up
with modern methods of teaching and research.
He listed some of the challenges confronting post-graduate studies
as dearth of research grants, quality of graduates, quality of
instructional content, limited availability of PhD holders to recruit,
among others.
Mande said that NOUN encountered difficulties in sending transcripts of post-graduate applicants to other universities.
“Even when the transcripts are sent, some post-graduate schools
are said not to have a proper documentation process to account for
transcripts received. The implication of this is that NOUN incurs more
cost in the process of having to resend such transcripts.
“Furthermore, there are times when as a result of a deadline,
there is the urgent need to send a transcript by at least email.
Unfortunately, many schools of post-graduate studies do not have
functional, institutional email addresses,’’ he said.
No fewer than 28 deans of schools of post-graduate studies in Nigerian universities attended the meeting.
-NAN
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