TheCable

The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) says the institution is set to award degrees to 25 inmates after completing their studies at the various Nigeria Correctional Service study centres. 

Olufemi Peters, NOUN vice-chancellor, said this, on Wednesday, while briefing journalists in Abuja in preparation for the institution’s 11th convocation. 

Peters said one out of the 25 inmates is graduating with a master’s degree, while others finished with bachelors degrees through free tuition. 

“We have 25 inmates, one is graduating with M.Sc and the remaining 24 from undergraduate (programmes). All these (inmates) are sponsored for free by the university,” he said. 

Peters said the inmates are part of the institution’s 22,250 students who will be graduating from its undergraduate and postgraduate programmes spread across eight faculties. 

The VC said 16,681 students scaled through undergraduate programmes, while 5,569 are graduating from postgraduate school. 

He also said 69 graduating students would bag first class degrees.

The VC noted that NOUN has agreed on a special arrangement with the law school that would see enrolment of its law graduates in batches.

“We have about 1,500 graduands of our law programme currently in the law school. We have about the same number that is yet to be enrolled at the law school,” he said. 

“The reason I said we have a special relationship with them (law school) is that they are not sure of the kind of graduates we are producing. The idea is to let us try them first. They have tried us now and they found competence in terms of the people we are producing. 

“We are waiting for this batch to finish, which is most likely this year. The next batch will come.”