We'd use mass education to fight insecurity, violence - Buhari | EduCeleb
Confidence Evwodere
24th March 2019
President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to make affordable mass education a tool to combat incidents of insecurity and violence in Nigeria.
He attributed crises in the most populous African nation to “ignorance” and gave commitment to addressing this better in his second term in office.
The president stated this on Saturday in his speech delivered at the 8th convocation ceremony of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Abuja.
He was represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Mr Victor Onuoha at the event.
reports that 103 of the graduating 20,799 students bagged a First Class honours.
Mr Bala Salihu Magaji, who bagged First Class in Islamic Studies, emerged the overall best graduating student out of the 15,642 undergraduate graduands and won the University coveted prize for 2019. The number of postgraduates is 5,157.
The president reiterated that education was the key to social, economic, political and religious development.
“The Federal Government of Nigeria is more than ever before, committed to making education affordable through the open and distance learning system.
“In this connection, therefore, a national policy on education has provided for life-long learning that transcends all barriers through open and distance learning,”he said.
He said as a government, necessary funding would be deployed through budgetary allocations, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) intervention and Needs Assessment funding to shore up the provision of quality tertiary education so as to guarantee access for the teeming youths in the country.
The President added that the open and distance learning would be further strengthened to take the lead in this desired direction of the government.
Also speaking at the ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor of NOUN, Professor Abdalla Adamu, said higher number of graduates being churned out of the university represented increased confidence in the efficacy of distance learning in Nigeria.
In his words, “It is worthy of note that last year, we graduated 14,769. The massive increase in the number of graduands this year is a clear indication of increasing confidence reposed by Nigerians on the efficacy of Open Distance Learning as an enabler.”
He added that the student population which stands at over 500,000 would remain grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari, for proving funding support in order to expand access to the University.
He said Buhari is the Visitor to the University occupies an exalted status in NOUN that goes beyond the leadership of the country; “for it was you who created this campus that we holding our convocation in, and it was you who commissioned it on 16th January 2016″
“Your gracious assent to the amendment of the NOUN (Amendment) Act in December 2018, has indeed opened more doors for thousands of youths in Nigeria to have greater confidence in NOUN.
“Prior to the assent to NOUN Amendment Act, there were misconceptions that the University offers part-time courses, or is a correspondence institution.
“This constituted a barrier to all our young graduates who are aged less than 30 and who are eager to serve their fatherland in the National Youth Service Scheme (NYSC).
“This conception also serves as a barrier to our Law graduates who have undergone a course of instruction in our Law degree, which was fully accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) to get admitted to the Nigerian Law School where they can be further trained as Barristers at Law,” he said.
The Vice-Chancellor further revealed that all the 18 programmes submitted to NUC, have all received accreditation, adding that while 15 had full accreditation, only three had interim accreditation.
Pro-Chancellor of NOUN and former Executive of the NUC, Peter Okebukola, in his address, revealed that NOUN now has enrollment in excess of 500,000 while also aiming for the one million marks by 2025 with quality graduates as the averred goal.
Professor Okebukola charged the graduating students to be good ambassadors of NOUN having been well prepared in learning and character to contribute their quota to the development of the society.
He expressed optimism that the Council of Legal Education would soon begin to admit NOUN graduates to the Nigerian Law School.