Fred Ezeh, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, stressed the need to increase access to education through functional mass education system to overcome the challenge of ignorance in Nigeria.
Buhari, who spoke as a visitor at the 8th convocation ceremony of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Abuja, said the Federal Government had resolved to increase investment on open and distance learning system for increased access to university education.
No fewer than 20, 799 students were awarded various classes of degrees at the ceremony. Out of the figure, 15,642 graduands were awarded first degree certificates with103 first class, while 5,157 bagged postgraduate degree certificate.
The President, who was represented by a senior official of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Victor Onuoha, highlighted the role of NOUN in achieving the target of increased access to education.
He said: “NOUN was primarily established to provide equitable opportunity to all eligible Nigerians to access university education. The aim was also to liberalize university education and lifelong learning.
“But most importantly, it was designed to give opportunity to people who, by one reason or the other, could not gain admission into conventional universities to study the course of their choice.
“I am happy that NOUN has not deviated from its mandate of providing affordable university education to thousands of students, not minding location.
“It is a common knowledge that the root of all the recorded crisis of nationhood we experienced in Nigeria is as a result of ignorance which we hope could only be corrected through functional mass education.
“That is why the Government recommitted to making education more affordable and accessible through the open and distance learning system.”
Meanwhile, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Abdallah Uba Adamu, in his remarks, urged the graduands to be good ambassadors of NOUN, expressing optimism that the ongoing negotiation with Council of Legal Education and National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) would put an end to age-long discrimination against NOUN graduates.