Directorate of Open and Distance Education
September 8, 2022 2022-09-08 21:25Directorate of Open and Distance Education
The Directorate of Open and Distance Education seeks to regulate the quality of open and distance provision of university education in Nigeria. This is in order to ensure that Nigeria optimizes these modes to help in ameliorating the problem of inadequate access and in fast-tracking high level human capacity production for national development and global competitiveness in line with regulatory frameworks and guidelines that Government may lay down from time to time.
The Directorate will be established with the ultimate desire to use it to enthrone and promote best practices in the delivery of quality university education through the instrumentality of the open and distance mode, for the purpose of producing globally competitive entrepreneurial graduates who are relevant to national development.
Since the university intends to operate a dual mode approach to delivery of instructions, it will leverage the optimization of the deployment and integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools into teaching and learning processes. To this end, the Directorate of Open and Distance Education will design and implement the delivery of quality university education via the Open and Distance Learning mode. The Directorate will offer selected degree programmes in line with the NUC guidelines for Open and Distance Learning in Nigerian Universities and best practices in global ICT-enabled delivery of quality education.
The University will apply and obtain the necessary NUC approval for operation of a dual mode system before the commencement of academic activities at the Directorate.
The Directorate shall be headed by a Director appointed by the Vice Chancellor.
The Directorate will be established to give an equal opportunity university education aimed at achieving the following objectives:
- Provision of Education for All and promotion of lifelong learning.
- Promotion of flexibility of delivery system in university education.
- Promotion of maximum utilization of academic personnel.
- Encouragement of On-the-job teacher training.
- Creation of opportunities to reach the unreached and the hitherto difficult to reach potential students.
The major responsibilities of the Directorate will include:
- Promotion and coordination of the orderly mainstreaming of the open and distance learning mode of delivering university education in Nigeria;
- Initiating programmes that are in tandem with the set standards of open and distance learning practice in the Nigerian university.
- Facilitating and strengthening the development of institutional and professional capacity for sustainable deployment of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode in the University.
- Collaborating with appropriate Departments in the NUC to ensure the delivery of quality university education by the ODL mode
- Liaising and collaborating with appropriate institutions in the public and private sectors within and outside Nigeria to ensure that the standard of ODL programmes and practice to be run by the University are consistence with global best practices; and
- Engaging in any other activities that will facilitate the optimization of the ODL mode in enhancing access to quality university education in Nigeria.
- Promoting, popularizing and coordinating, the deployment of E-learning tools in the delivery of open and distance education in the University.
