VC chairs 44th ACDE Executive Board Meeting, shares NOUN experience

The Vice-Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Olufemi Peters, on Wednesday, August 17 - Friday, August 19, 2022 acted on behalf of the President, African Centre for Distance Education (ACDE), Prof. Goski Alabi in chairing the Executive Board sessions of the centre in South Africa.

The thrust of the meeting was to steer the board towards landmark resolutions for ODL transformation in Africa, which was hosted by the University of South Africa (UNISA) at its Pretoria and Johannesburg campuses.

The sessions featured presentations from the four major ACDE Programme Directors including Prof. Christine Ofulue, Director ACDE QAAA at NOUN; a Round-table Discussion by Vice-Chancellors on the topic, "Re-imagining Open Distance Learning: Lessons Learnt from Covid-19 - Moving from Responsive to Recovery Phase.’’

They also toured the UNISA science faculties, extensive laboratories and solar car invention, the Course Materials Development and Printing Press; as well as the execution of an MoU between UNISA and the Zimbabwe Open University.

Peters equally seized the opportunity to share the NOUN experience in the extensive use of emerging ICT innovations in ODL, especially during Covid-19, development of instructional videos, elevation of ICT administration to senior executive position and the ongoing collaboration with the NUC for certification of ODL institutions in Nigeria by the ACDE QAAA.

The board sessions steered by Peters made several landmark resolutions including the review of the ACDE Quality Assurance and Accreditation tool-kit, development of MOOCs to Train-The-Trainers in ODL institutions across Africa and focused training of institutional regulators across Africa on the ACDE QAAA tool-kit – to be led by NOUN.

The resolutions also harmonised research framework for African ODL institutions, adoption of the NOUN led WAJOFEL Journal for ACDE publications, upgrade of existing ODL applications and an African-led development of online learning applications for use on the continent in preparation for another disruption post-Covid-19 as well as enhancement of digital literacy for students, among others.

Meanwhile, NOUN is expected to host several ACDE teams for the MOOC training courses in October, 2022.