Minister asks Abuja’s Al-Muhibbah Open University to focus on locally relevant courses

Tahir Mamman, minister of education, has asked Al-Muhibbah Open University in Abuja to offer programmes that are relevant to the local communities.

Al-Muhibbah Open University is among the 37 private universities licenced in 2023 to operate open and distance learning in Nigeria.

Mamman spoke in Abuja on Friday during the unveiling of the university at its first matriculation ceremony.

A total of 105 students across three faculties and 14 programmes were matriculated.

Mamman said there is a need to open up the system for private education to meet the needs of Nigeria’s large pool of youths seeking a university education.

“Open distance learning education is a relatively new frontier for us and that is the direction our tertiary education is moving,” the minister said.

“The government ownership of open university has risen to over 700,000 students, the largest in Africa. The pool of young men and women interested in education is large. Certainly, the government cannot meet these demands.

“So it is appropriate that we open the system to the private sector which is committed to the provision of this level of education.”

Mamman asked the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other regulatory agencies to come up with quality assurance mechanisms that will strengthen open universities.

“The public must have the assurance that the universities will deliver the quality programmes which they approve,” he said.

“One of the focus areas of this government is qualifications that are relevant to our local community.

“They must be relevant while having the same quality that will make you competitive in the international arena.

“How do you become relevant within the local frontier? It is by ensuring that you have programmes that embed in them skills which will make them readily employable or better still employers of Nigerians.”

The approved programmes at Al-Muhibbah Open University are business administration, economics, accounting, international relations, marketing, project management, and entrepreneurship.

Others are computer science, cyber security, software engineering, public health, nursing, science, data science & analytics, and healthcare & hospital management.