The National Universities Commission (NUC) has approved the commencement of academic activities in the University of Nigeria’s Centre for Distance and e-Learning (CDeL).

Notification for the approval is contained in a letter addressed to the Vice-Chancellor of the university and signed by the Executive Chairman of the NUC, Professor Abubakar Rasheed.

The letter dated July 16, 2018, stated that the approval “is based on the validated status recommended by the panel of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and Subject Matter Experts and NUC representatives that paid a pre-validation Assessment visit to the proposed Centre from 22nd to 25th April 2018.”

The approval granted the university the authority to commence Master’s degree programme in Business Administration (MBA) in four subject areas namely; Accountancy, Banking and Finance, Marketing and Management.

However, the Director of the CDeL, Prof Boniface Nwogu, said the second phase of the programme would include courses in social sciences, Computer Science and Mass Communication at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

“We have already developed programme for the courses, very soon we will re-invite NUC for the accreditation”, the Director said.

Prof Nwogu noted that the uniqueness of the MBA programme in the university "is that the course materials are written in interactive and conversational mode for easy understanding of students”.

“We are fully prepared for the programme,” the Director said.

He added that the instructional materials also included recorded video lectures stored in tablets and CDs which would be given to registered students.

“We have a programme that no other existing MBA in this country can compare with,” he said

Nwogu said that the commencement of the MBA programme marked the transition of the University of Nigeria from a single mode institution to a dual mode institution, which, according to him, is the first of its kind in the whole of South-East and South-South.

He described the NUC approval as a remarkable achievement of Prof Ozumba’s administration which would improve quality of higher education delivery in the country and enhance the global visibility of the university