The registered active student population of the National Open University of Nigeria(NOUN) has hit Two hundred and fifty four thousand(254,000), Vice- Chancellor, Professor Abdalla Adamu disclosed this to the Economic Confidential in Abuja.

The number, according to the Vice- Chancellor, is distributed across the 77 study centres scattered all over the country touching all the states, local government areas and the six geopolitical zones.

“I can confidently confirm to you that the total registered active student population is now 254,000 scattered across the 77 study centres in the country”, Professor Abdalla Adamu said.

The NOUN boss also said that having the 77 study centers means that some states have more than one or two study centres depending on demand, adding that Abuja has about 8 centres.

He further stated that “some organizations come to us and ask for study centres and we call them specialized centres, notably Police, Immigration and the Nigerian Prison Service, while some states have community study centres.

Related News

He however noted that at the inception of the Open University, there were misgivings and mistrust about the institution, as many people do not look at it as credible and worthy. He said the pressure of students getting admission to conventional universities were increasing by the day as almost one million students want to gain admission into universities yearly through Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board(JAMB).

He emphasized that the influx has become so enormous that the state study centres can no more cope with the population, which gave rise to requests for community study centres by some states and these requests were mostly from the southern parts of the country.

Meanwhile, the University authority has sacked the two companies manning the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and replaced them with an in-house team of IT experts, thereby saving the institution about 80 percent revenue that had earlier been lost to NOUN.

Hear him: “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 infrastructure were outsourced to two companies. One was called Cyberspace and the other called Emerging Platforms.”

Source: PR Nigeria