Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, has promised to sponsor 200 students from the state to the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).
The governor gave the promise even as he approved the construction of a N400 million National Open University Study Centre in Gusau, the state capital.
According to him, the decision to sponsor the students was due to his desire to fast track the development of education in the state. He added that government will continue to sponsor students into the university as it has proved to be a way of obtaining quality education without hurdles.
Speaking during a working visit to the headquarters of the university in Abuja, the governor said his administration was committed to building a virile youth for the prosperity of the state.
He said, “I am convinced that NOUN is the right institution to assist in that direction because it is not hindered by bottlenecks peculiar to the tertiary education system in this country.
“I have sponsored 200 qualified students abroad to study critical areas of medical and technology courses where the state is in dire need.”
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“I am committed to transforming the educational sector and that is why the sector got the highest allocation in the 2020 budget.”
NOUN Vice Chancellor, Abdallah Adamu, said the university’s programmes are based online and that students could acquire admission, register, study and even conduct their examination online.
“Your Excellency, as at today, we have completed our first semester examination despite lockdown arising from the pandemic of COVID-19 because the bulk of our business is conducted online,” he said .
He said the northern part of the country was still lagging behind in its enrolment in the university. “As at today, the whole of the three geopolitical zones in the Northern hemisphere of the country have only 17,000 students, compared to the South Western state which, alone, has 37,000 students. Of the over 400 lecturers we interviewed for employment recently, only nine applied from the North.
“The Northern governors need to work hard to ensure that their indigenes participate in this national opportunity,” he said.
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