The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) has introduced an e-ticketing platform ahead of its 20th anniversary slated for March 25.

The Vice-Chancellor of NOUN, Prof. Olufemi Peters, said in Abuja that the platform was introduced to resolve challenges encountered by students in real time.

“This helps us track the students’ challenges,” he said.

Peters noted that the institution had achieved so much in ensuring that Nigerians irrespective of their tight schedule, obtain quality education.

He said that 28,740 students would be graduating on Saturday as part of activities for the anniversary.

“The university wants to use the opportunity to showcase what it has achieved especially its exploits during the COVID-19 era.

“We have 21,339 undergraduates and 7,101 postgraduate students graduating.

“Among this number are 58 inmates out of which seven are postgraduate graduands.

“We have 14 centres in our prisons and we have been mandated to expand it.

“In all, we have 28,740 students graduating during our 12th convocation,” Peters said.

He disclosed that the graduating inmates were under scholarship adding that there were criteria to be among the beneficiaries.

Peters said the gesture was NOUN’s own way of discharging its corporate social responsibility to help the inmates lead a normal life after leaving the correctional centres.

He added that the first female Vice-chancellor of the University of South Africa (UNISA), Prof. Puleng LenkaBula, would be attending the convocation as the guest lecturer.

“Students of the five study centres in Abuja, first class and Masters students will come to the headquarters for the convocation, while others outside Abuja will join from the study centres in their various states.

“We have 141,000 active students and about 250,000 when you combine active and inactive students with 118 study centres nationwide.”

Two researchers in the Department of Food Engineering, University of Ilorin (Unilorin), Prof. Joshua Olaoye and Dr. Musliu Sunmonu, have won over a N788 million grant from Innovate UK.

The two researchers from the Faculty of Engineering and Technology won the grant for the 2022/2023 Africa AgriFood Knowledge Transfer Partnership (AAKTP)

The award was granted to Unilorin in partnership with De Montfort University, UK, and Microscale Embedded Limited, Abuja.

In his remark to the Unilorin Bulletin released on Monday, Olaoye, who is the Academic Lead for the project, explained that the grant award is agricultural based.

He said that the three groups, through their representatives, had earlier put up a collective proposal with major work done by Sunmonu of Unilorin as the Academic Supervisor.

“The lead supervisor is to create an enabling environment while the academic supervisor is the brain behind the project with the guidance of the lead supervisor. We must give kudos to Dr. Sunmonu for his resilience in this particular award,” he said.

According to him, the project has to be conducted in Nigeria and Unilorin is the only university to carry out the project under the ‘Innovate UK’ supervision.

“This is to ensure that we are doing the right thing in accordance with the demand of the granting body of the award.

“The company has to come again because it is not just paperwork alone; it transcends that. The focus is on how we can mitigate agricultural loss.

“Doing that involves coming out with the concept of putting all stakeholders within the agricultural value chain of multiple crops on the same page, such that we have producers.

“This particular research work will assist the farmers in doing the right thing at the right time to get the best productivity from the work they are carrying out,” he said.

Olaoye stated that this milestone would enhance the university’s Webometric ranking, and also give Unilorin opportunity for alumni to be employed in the project.

“When it starts, we hope that we will get a Laboratory where we will be training our students on Global Information Services,” he said.

The General Manager, Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), Mr Oluwadamilola Emmanuel, has said that the agency trained 300 pupils in the last three years to reduce the incidence of children drowning in Nigeria.

Emmanuel made the disclosure during the 3rd edition of LASWA’s Advocacy Programme tagged ” The Lagos Water Savvy Kids Programme.”

It was held in partnership with State Universal Basic Education Board SUBEB and the Dolphin Swim School, in Epe, Lagos.

The General Manager said that swimming training would help to reduce the incidence of children drowning in water accidents and improve use of water transportation.

Emmanuel said the training was to instil water confidence in pupils by giving them theoretical and practical knowledge on waterways safety, swimming skills and basic survival techniques in an emergency.

“A total of 50 students from five public schools in riverine communities in the Epe axis of Lagos were selected to participate in this year’s edition.

“With this training, school children using the waterways will be more confident, conscious of their safety, and be self-reliant in an emergency.

“There is a need to increase swimming culture among children and we have deemed it fit to take this to public schools and to all the divisions of the state. 

“The training of kids on how to swim is not only done by Lagos State Waterways Authority, the Sport commission is also involved. 

”There has been a call to all stakeholders to create more awareness and encourage the swimming culture as well as ensure that there are always water guards around the pools. 

“This is the third edition, and we have taken the exercise to Ibeshe, Ojo and Epe,” Emmanuel said.

The LASWA boss promised to continue to engage schools, teachers and parents to understand that the programme is safe, and healthwise, advisable. 

He promised to look into the inclusion of teachers along riverine areas in the training.

Emmanuel said that the safety of lives on the waterways had become paramount and LASWA would continue to give it its utmost attention by providing necessary safety guidelines and life jackets.

The Education Secretary, Epe Local Government, Mr Idowu Shittu, commended LASWA for organising the swimming programme for their pupils.

Shittu pleaded with the Lagos State Government and LASWA to extend the swimming training to the teachers, to remove their phobia of water transport.

He explained that swimming was part of the psychomotor aspect of education which was also a source of generating income and employing people.

The representative of SUBEB in Epe, Mrs Temidayo Oyeniran, expressed her gratitude on the swimming training for the kids and pleaded for an extension to teachers.

Oyeniran said that they lost a teacher as a result of drowning during the rainy season, noting that if the teacher had such training, it would have saved her life.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Lead Instructor, Dolphin Swim School and Dolphin Aquatic Center Ltd., Mrs Aderoju Ope-Ajayi, said the pupils learnt how to use life jackets properly, how to swim with it and how to avoid drowning.

Ope-Ajayi said that the pupils were taught the importance of water safety and were able to grasp the concept easily because they had local knowledge of swimming.

“Currently, we run a learn-to-swim programme for children and adults.

“A child learning how to be water safe means drowning prevention; that means the rate of death by drowning will significantly reduce.

Over 800 children drown every year, now the children will demonstrate the skills they learnt during the training,” she said.

One of the beneficiaries from Local Government Primary School, Oriba in Epe, Miss Afusat Muritala, said she was able to learn basic survival strategies, diving and swimming.

Another pupil, Moshood Idowu, appreciated the State government and LASUBEB for the swimming training.