Millions of students hit by halt of part-time courses

Stakeholders in the Nigerian education sector have expressed displeasure at the decision of the National Universities Commission to suspend part-time programmes in Nigerian universities, writes Kuni Tyessi for Leadership.

An estimated 10 million students, most of them workers, may be affected by the decision. In arriving at the decision, the commission argued that the accreditation of 30 courses in the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) would satisfy the needs of this category of Nigerian students, who see part-time studies as a way of improving themselves and enhancing their careers.

But experts insisted that the commission must have missed the point if it thought that accrediting courses in NOUN was the best way to woo candidates into the institution that should have no fewer than 500,000 students but has been able to attract only about 138,000 due, largely, to its poor image of not being able to graduate its students.
Full report on the Leadership site