Unraveling the Historical Antecedents and Challenges of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)
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Date
2025-07-15
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Department of Educational Foundations, Faculty of Education, University of Port Harcourt
Abstract
In spite of laudable objectives of National Open University of Nigeria, it has not gained wider acceptability in the country due to suspected low quality of learning, unethical practice and lack of parity of esteem with the conventional undergraduate degree programmes. This has made parents and prospective candidates not to have interesting in the operation of NOUN. This therefore, prompted the investigation into historical antecedents and challenges of NOUN. Historical research type was adopted for the study. The population of the study included; Directors of study centres, Administrative staff, facilitators and students. The study made us of both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary source of data including, Proforma, printed documents from the institution's website and questionnaire, while secondary source of data were past thesis, textbooks and journals. Two research questions were raised and answered. Data collected were analysed using qualitative and quantitative methods. The finding revealed that in order to resolve the problem of accessibility to university education which provided in multiplier effects on social problems such as unemployment, armed robbery, kidnapping, tribalism, ethnicity, prostitution and exploitation of prospective candidates private universities, the federal government of Nigeria therefore adopted National Open University of Nigeria and distance education. The study also revealed that the gap between policy and practices, inadequacy of facilities, lack of counselling services, delay in release of results, delay in payment of entitlements and benefits of facilitators and poor electricity supply are major challenges faced by NOUN. The study recommended that the Ministries of Education both at states, federal and local government should begin to play a role in the development of open and distance learning education.
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Keywords
Unraveling, Historical antecedents, Challenges, NOUN