The Vice Chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Olufemi Peters, have commissioned the Africa Centre of Excellence on Technology Enhanced Learning (ACETEL) newly established ACETEL laboratories on Wednesday, August 7 2024,in the Centre, at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) headquarters, Abuja.
The ground breaking event marks a significant milestone in the Centre’s continous effort to enhance the academic and research capabilities of the university.
The Labs that were commissioned are; the Management Information Systems Laboratory (MIS) laboratory, Cybersecurity Laboratory, Virtual Reality Laboratory, ACETEL Basic Laboratory, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, ACETEL – CISCO Academy and the Multimedia Laboratory.
The Vice Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), in his remarks, he appreciated the World Bank for the establishment of ACETEL in NOUN and also staff of NOUN.
The VC commended ACETEL for the effort it is putting into the Centre with the aim of fulfilling its mandate, noting that the MSc and PhD programmes the Centre is running are peculiar.
While noting that the university is closely watching the activities of Centre, he said, “ACETEL is a postgraduate facility for the progressive.”
Prof. Peters Urged the leadership of ACETEL to collaborate with other Faculties in NOUN.
The VC commissioned the ACETEL laboratories and toured the seven (7) labs, inspecting the equipments and gadgets, which were operated by ACETEL staff in charge of the labs and its students, showcasing the use of the labs and how the systems are used.
Earlier, the Director, ACETEL, Prof. Grace Jokthan, in her welcome address, gave a brief history of the Centre, stating that ACETEL was established in 2019 as a response of the university to the call by the World Bank on the ACE Impact Project Submission.
Speaking further, she said “Despite the launch of the Centre, it actually fully became operational in January 2021, this was as a result of COVID and also issues relating to funding by the Nigerian government to sign the agreement.”
She said “Through this comprehensive suite of programmes ACETEL is running, which are six (6) programmes at the MSc and PhD levels in Management Information Systems (MIS), CyberSecurity and Artificial Intelligence, ACETEL is poised to deliver its mandate in shaping and to be at the forefront as Africa’s digital education future.
“There are input from the two regional bodies, as well as NUC, there are input from NUC, there are input from the university, there are input from facilitators, there are input from industry, there are input from students as well as the ACETEL team, this input are running the activities of the centre which involves the use of IT for training, for education as well as for delivery for research output for the Centre and the region as a whole.”
Prof. Jokthan noted that “The academic programmes are there, they have been resource verified and accredited by NUC , we have also gotten to a level in the institutional accreditation due to the existence of these programmes and we are currently submitting for international programme accreditation for the six programmes.
Stating the enrollment status of the Centre, she said, the Centre has two hundred and fifty-six (256) students out of which forty seven (47) are regional students, while thirty-five (35) are females.
The state of the art laboratories are designed to support cutting – edge research and advanced learning opportunities for students and faculties.
Loretta Edozie
Abuja