The Nigerian senate on Thursday passed the amendment to the Act that established the National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN.
With the passage, NOUN graduates can now be mobilised by the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, as well as the Law school.
There has been a long-standing tussle between the university and the Council of Legal Education, the umbrella body that call law graduates to the law school.
The bone of contention was the usage of “correspondence” in the NOUN Act, which the CLE and NYSC refused to recognise, describing the study as a part-time.
But the amendment to the Act by the senate expunged the bottlenecks and recognise the university as a full-time, Open and Distance Learning institution.
The senate’s endorsement followed the clause-by-clause consideration of the report of the Senate Commitee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND chaired by Barau Jibrin on the amendment of NOUN Act.
Mr Barau said the amendment would address the perception of the public about the university regarding the contentious “correspondence”.
The senator, while introducing the report of his committee said “These two concepts correspondence and part-time significantly affect the way the public views the programs run by the University.
“This has been the reason why the Law Graduates of the School are not admitted into the Nigerian Law School as well as the reason for the non inclusion of the graduates of the University into the National Youth Service Corps Scheme,”.
