Wole Balogun, Ado-Ekiti
The Federal University Oye-Ekiti will soon become a dual mode University, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Kayode Soremekun has said.
The VC, Sunday Sun gathered, has held several meetings with the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), in Vancouver, Canada, with a view to strategize on transiting the institution into a Dual Mode University, which combines the existing conventional academic programmes of the institution with Distance Learning Programme.
COL is an intergovernmental organisation established by the Commonwealth Heads of Government in 1988, to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge and resources.
Founded mainly with the aim of enhancing the quality of educational programmes of the Commonwealth nations, COL hosts a biennial Pan-commonwealth Forum on Open learning (PCF) and Excellence in Distance Awards programme.
Nigeria as a prominent member-nation of the Commonwealth has representatives on COL’s Board of Governors, and this enables the country’s fast growing academic institutions to have linkages with the organisation on Open Learning and Distance Programme.
Speaking with newsmen on the development, Prof. Soremekun said:”I have visited COL and held series of meetings with the organisation and the matters discussed were focused on developing FUOYE with regards to quality assurance, employability and the strategy to transit FUOYE into a Dual Mode University. Dual Mode means that we are complementing our existing orthodox programmes with the Distance Learning Programme.”