The Environmental Health Council of Nigeria (EHCON) has sought for the partnership of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) towards the development of a reference practical village to enhance the study of Environmental Health programme and its professional accreditation.
The Registrar of the council, Dr. Baba Mohammed Yakubu, who led a 13-man delegation, stated this on Thursday, September 7, 2022 during a courtesy visit to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Olufemi Peters at the headquarters of the university in Abuja.
Yakubu, while appreciating the NOUN management, said the partnership will not only be utilised by the students of NOUN but also by other health practitioners across the country.
“We know what the university lacks. What the university lacks is practice village, we will like to collaborate and see how we can come up with a reference village for NOUN, for other universities to come and emulate,” registrar said while explaining the import of the proposed reference practical village.
“We are here to concretise on our partnership and to thank the university for accepting to increase the scope of requirements for admission by considering sub-professional cadres that we are regulating.
“It is imperative and our concern is that whatever profession one is regulating without creating a mobility for the younger cadre to grow to a big cadre, one is creating a bottle neck.
“We want to thank the university for considering a mobility and allowing the technicians to come in at a certain level and HND graduates who are also accepted by the university to start a particular level,” he added.
The leader of the delegation further thanked the management for the partnership so far, adding that the council is open to receive any request in terms of technical support to make the university’s department of environmental health sound and a reference point in NOUN and across the country.
In his response, the VC expressed excitement for the honour the registrar had done to the university by leading his team to NOUN. “The gesture is enough to make my disposition towards the council greater than what it was.”
Peters, who acknowledged the track record of partnership with the council, added that the council has demonstrated a professional intuition moving from the old to an enlarged mandate.
“I am very positive that this relationship will grow both parties, and have benefits and for us, it will be another added feather that the programme we are running has been accepted by the council and that gives us student mileage that once they finish the programme, council will recognise them. It’s a win-win situation for us,”he stated.
The VC said the university is encouraged by the offers and assistances by the council to be a front-runner and sample to other universities willing to run the programme in the future.
He disclosed that the university has thus far admitted about 600 students for the programme, but, according to him, NOUN has the capacity to admit more students because of its spread across the geopolitical zones.
The Vice-Chancellor also said the university is willing to collaborate with the council’s publicity-based programmes such as the World Environmental Day, World Toilet Day, amongst others as, according to him, this will help the two parties bring the issues to national prominence and make more people aware.
Peters further requested the council’s presence as the university is producing videos of its course materials for students so as to give them a professional touch.
NOUN decided to venture into videos for its course materials due to the current age of smart phones as students can now listen and watch even while on transit, he said.
The Dean, Faculty of Health Science, Prof. Shehu Adamu and the Head of Department, Environmental Health Science, Dr. Oluremi Saliu were present during the visit.
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