615 prisoners studying free at NOUN | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
19th March 2020
A total of 615 prison inmates are studying at the National Open University in Nigeria (NOUN) under a free education scheme.
The institution’s Vice-Chancellor, Abdallah Adamu disclosed  this in Lagos during a press briefing.
The professor of science education said that NOUN is responsible for the payment of their fees up to PhD level.
He added that it had been his joy to encourage prisoners to acquire education and be useful on re-integration into the society.
EduCeleb.com recently quoted the NOUN chief who disclosed that not less than 3000 prison inmates in the Nigeria Correctional Services are enrolled in its degree programmes.
Adamu said that he was  happy seeing people who were incarcerated and had no hope, with some of them on death row and life sentence, studying.
The Vice-Chancellor added that the inmates had preference for studying Peace and Conflict Resolution as their major courses.
Adamu said that NOUN, established in 2002,  also encouraged people living with disabilities to enroll into it.
“We don’t want a situation where people with so-called learning disabilities are separated from the society,” the VC said.
“If anybody with a learning disability wishes to enroll in NOUN, he is also welcome.
“We don’t have braille books but we have other items of tech. Phones now have enhancements that they can use, although they’ve not been able to explore these.
“We are living in an inclusive world, we want these people to be part of the society because they live in there. So, we integrate them as much as we can.”
According to Adamu, NOUN intends to further actualise the initiative but will need  funding from the federal  government to realise its projected goals.