Latest information reaching our news desk today, is that the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) is working toward producing its course materials as tablet computers rather than textbooks, its Vice-Chancellor has disclosed to NANS.
According to the Vice chancellor of the open university of Nigeria who disclosed this information to NANS, while receiving Irina Bokova, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Director-General, who paid him a courtesy call on Thursday in FCT. Abuja.
According to the Vice Chancellor of the academic institution, the largest area of support that UNESCO gives to NOUN is the Open Education Resource (OER). Here is his exact words on the provision and support from UNESCO.
“The OER is an online repository of a huge number of resources in education and the beauty of it is that they are free and anybody can access them from any part of the World.
When NOUN eventually matures to a package called iNOUN, One of our major goals will be to produce our materials as tablets rather than as textbooks, to make study much more easier for our students.
Virtually all the OERs will be downloaded on the tablet, making it possible for Students to take them along wherever they are.
One major benefit why The OER is okay is that you do not need to have internet access, before you will be able to have access to OER; This is one area that UNESCO has been extremely dynamic and helping us to acquire.
He went on to say that OER was a part of the equity drive of both NOUN and UNESCO, to ensure that people around the world had access to quality education at no cost and education is free for all.
The vice-chancellor disclosed that the Open University of Nigeria was networked to OER and UNESCO, in order to provide thousands of Nigerians with a rare but available opportunity to have access to quality education materials free of charge.
According to him, one of the OERs the institution is running at the moment is the History and Philosophy Science.
The vice chancellor went on to further disclosed that one of the major challenges which is currently confronting NOUN was that the public was not well-informed on the validity of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and the knowledge they can tab from it. He went on to appealed to UNESCO to assist the institution in projecting and spreading the gospel of ODL as a veritable tool for university education in the 21st century.
To show that Nou is passionate and very supportive in the education of the citizens of Nigeria, the vice-chancellor said that NOUN had provided scholarships to prisoners and was focusing on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), petty traders, artisans, commercial drivers among others.
After hearing from the VC, in responds, Bokova applauded NOUN for its passionate support education and social inclusion. She said that NOUN represented everything in the mandate of the SDG4, which is;
Equality, Education for all, reaching the unreached and distant and marginalised. Here is the exact words of Bokova and we quote below;
“Your academic institution are very much involved in achieving the SDG4 in all its ramifications. You cannot achieve excellence in vocational education without higher education.
The truth is that we need to stimulate Research, Science, Technology and Innovation, which variably means that we need to train more teachers in this area.”
Further More, Bokova applauded Noun for it’s energy in supporting education in Nigeria, and said that UNESCO will continue to support the institution.
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