NTI Director in Owerri, Begins Distance Learning Programme Soon

December 14, 2001

NATIONAL Teachers Institute (NTI), Kaduna, will soon commence degree programmes in education through the Distance Learning System (DLS).

The Director and Chief Executive of the institute, Dr Ahmed Mohammed, made the disclosure during the National Certificate of Education (NCE) graduation ceremony of the Abia/Imo Field Centre in Owerri.

Mohammed, represented by the institute’s director of academic and support services, Malam Uyu Ishmaila, said that plans for the Bachelor of Education programme had reached an advanced stage.

He said that arrangements were being made with the National Universities Commission (NUC) and pointed out that the idea of the programme was conceived because of rising demand for it by students and teachers.

The director said the NTI admitted a total of 40,000 teacher trainees under the pivotal teachers training programme designed by the Federal Government and announced that the last batch would commence their training in January.

Earlier, the coordinator of NTI in Imo and Abia, Mr Dele Yaya, had said that the institute was enjoying an enhanced competitive edge over the country’s universities and polytechnics which were ordered by the Federal Government recently to close their satellite campuses.

He said the NTI had recorded mass enrolment of students into its DLS since the closure of the satellite campuses. Yaya, however, noted that the competitive advantage called for more serious work on the part of NTI and gave assurance that the institute’s management would do its best to meet the challenges.

He warned that NTI would not hesitate to close any unviable study centre and pointed out that the twin issues of regular payment of school fees and high enrolment were the determinants of the viability of a study centre.