The Chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria, His Royal Majesty Oba Ewuare II, Oba of Benin, presided over the institution’s 15th convocation ceremony in Abuja, using the occasion to advocate for stronger and more inclusive national policies that recognised open and distance learning graduates as fully equal participants in Nigeria’s human capital development enterprise.
The ceremony brought together top government officials, academic leaders, and thousands of families of graduating students, marking the graduation of nearly 25,000 students across undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral levels in what the institution described as its most significant convocation in scale and academic breadth.
The Oba described NOUN as a critical national vehicle for expanding access to higher education, noting that its founding objective of bridging admission gaps in conventional universities had been substantially realised. He said the institution, operating through approximately 130 study centres across the country, had evolved into what he called a national instrument of inclusion, equity, and opportunity that reached communities previously shut out of the higher education system.
A major focus of his remarks was the status of NOUN graduates within national frameworks, particularly the longstanding issue of eligibility for the National Youth Service Corps. He observed that a growing number of NOUN students fell within the service age bracket and had met all academic requirements comparable to their counterparts in conventional universities, yet continued to face policy limitations that treated their qualifications as second-tier credentials.
He expressed optimism that ongoing engagements with relevant authorities would produce policy adjustments ensuring NOUN graduates could compete and serve on equal terms with graduates of conventional institutions.
The convocation also marked the first ceremony presided over by the university’s sixth Vice Chancellor, Professor Uduma Oji Oduma, who outlined a five-year institutional transformation vision anchored on discipline, measurable outcomes, and global relevance. He highlighted significant technological advances, including the migration of university systems to Amazon Web Services, improving scalability, security, and operational efficiency. He disclosed that NOUN currently operated the largest single-instance Moodle-based learning management system in West Africa, supporting over 180,000 active users and delivering more than 2,000 courses each semester.
