Varsity innovates instructional tablet, ‘Disaporic NOUN’

Conscious of the need to innovate in order to stay relevant in a dynamic and fast-changing world, the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) is strategising with a view to revolutionising its mode of delivery, as well as reach out to knowledge seeking Nigerians beyond the country’s shores.

In this direction, the introduction of an electronic instructional tablet, “i-NOUN,” will put paid to the endemic shortage of study materials in the university, while the launch of “Diasporic NOUN,” would give tertiary education access to Nigerians living in other countries, especially African countries.

Vice chancellor of the university, Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu, who made the disclosure recently during a courtesy visit to the chancellor of the university, Igwe Dr. Lawrence Chikezie Agubuzu, Awene Ezeama-Olo, in Ezeagu Local Council Area of Enugu State, said that the introduction of the tablet, which is at advanced stage, will not only put paid to the challenge of study materials shortages, but will also cut down fees payable.

“The i-NOUN tablet, which would be made available to all students will have all study materials uploaded in them and would be updated regularly to foreclose the possibility of the getting study materials getting obsolete,” he said.

Adamu commended his predecessor, Professor Vincent Ado Tenebe, “for taking NOUN from an evolutionary university to a revolutionary university,” promising to work to sustain the tempo.

He said having granted tuition-free education to all prison inmates in the country, the school would soon launch the “Diasporic NOUN, an initiative, which has already attracted interest from Ghana, Benin Republic and Liberia. It is conceived to generate access to tertiary education for Nigerians in other countries, especially African countries, who by their business callings and social circumstances, may have been precluded from opportunities for conventional academic pursuit.”

Plans, he said, are underway to set up study centres in those countries to facilitate the take-off of the initiative, which would address the education needs of Nigerians living there.

Adamu said his administration would also build a world-class broadcast studio with hi-tech equipment where the instructional broadcast of the university would be done.

Igwe Agubuzu, in his remarks pledged to work in full cooperation with Professor Adamu, while calling on Nigerians to support President Muhammadu Buhari to move the country forward. “President Buhari is a quintessential patriot who must be supported by all Nigerians to build this country,” he said.

The royal father who is also the chairman, Enugu State Council of Traditional Rulers, described Adamu as being “eminently qualified to manage the institution.”