- As NOUN graduates 25 prison inmates
The Nigerian Law School has opened its doors to the law graduates of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), with the first batch of 1500 law graduates of NOUN admitted into the Law School after years of rejection.
More than 3,000 NOUN law graduates have been denied admission by the authorities of the Nigerian Law School on the ground that the University is not a conventional University to graduate qualified candidates for admission into the institution.
But the Vice-Chancellor of NOUN, Professor Olufemi Peters, on Tuesday, while briefing newsmen on the activities lined up for the 11th convocation ceremony, scheduled to hold on Saturday, March 26, 2022, said that jinx had been broken with the first batch of the NOUN law graduates admitted in the ongoing session of the Nigerian Law School.
Peters who was upbeat about the quality of students being graduated from NOUN said a deal was struct with the management of the Nigerian Law School to “test” the first batch of the candidates, he noted are reportedly doing well in the Law School.
The Vice-Chancellor also disclosed 25 inmates of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) studying with the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) correction’s special study centres have graduated with various degrees.
He revealed that NOUN would be graduating a total of 22,250 students during its convocation saying, “We have 25 inmates, one graduating in MSc and the remaining twenty-four as undergraduates.
“All these are sponsored free by the university as our own contribution to social equality,” he said.
On Law School, he said a total of 1500 graduates of NOUN have enrolled into the Nigeria Law School, adding that all the institution’s programmes, including the law programme, have been accredited by National Universities Commission (NUC), said its products are doing well in the Law School.
He said: “We have about 1,500 students who are graduates of our institution currently in the law school. We have about the same numbers that are yet to be enrolled in the law school.
“The reason why I said it is a special relationship is that you recall that we had a slightly wonderful relationship with them because they were not sure about the kind of graduates we were producing and the idea now is to let us try them first.
“So they are trying us now and they found out to be extremely competent in terms of the people they have produced of good quality. So we are waiting until after this batch has finished, most likely this year then the next batch will come.”
Speaking on why NOUN is not part of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), he said the institution’s structure would not permit it to go on strike, unlike the conventional universities.
“In regard to ASUU agitations, yes, we do have agitations, that is normal in any human association but these universities do not accept that for the fact that our students are different from conventional universities.
“Our students have special motivation to read and study because of that we discourage our staff from joining the national strike but they have every reason to have unions among themselves but we have restricted that because our students are not students who are different,” he added.
