The Director, Port Harcourt Study Centre, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Dr. Theresa Ucheoma Ettu, has charged students of the centre to take full charge and control of their studies as she described NOUN as a do-it-yourself university.
Ettu gave the charge on Saturday, May 10, 2025, when she hosted students of the centre to a Students’ Forum, explaining that the forum was meant to sensitise attendees on how to maximise their learning opportunities and take full charge of their studies.
She highlighted areas that students needed to take charge of and do it themselves to include semester registration, course/exams registration and the Tutor Marked Assignments (TMAs).
Other areas the director highlighted and counselled students to own and take control of are online course facilitations and examination.
She observed that outsourcing of academic activities to business centre operators by students is the cause of distressful academic outcomes (failures, negative balances, delay in graduation) among NOUN students.
Ettu equated the unwholesome habit of outsourcing academic activities by students to patients receiving prescriptions from qualified physicians, procuring the drugs accordingly but requesting friends to take the drugs on their behalf.
The director tasked students to do their TMAs themselves as that would help them internalise the learning contents, adding that students, at the end of their programmes, could obtain certificates without acquiring the desired knowledge if they keep outsourcing their academic activities to mercenaries.
The Centre Director also admonished the students to ensure that the timetable with which they prepare for exams is the final one.
“Some students copy the provisional exams timetable and refuse to visit their web portals or consult their desk officers for possible adjustments by the Directorate of Exams and Assessment (DEA) when the final timetable has been eventually released and end up missing their exams and complaining,” she said.
She reminded her audience that Port Harcourt Study Centre has zero tolerance to all forms of examinations misconduct; explaining that if certificates issued by NOUN must retain and sustain global credibility, which it boasts of at present, students must eschew exams malpractice.
Ettu warned that any student caught in the act of impersonation or any form of exams misconduct would face summary expulsion.
The Principal Students’ Counselor (PSC) of the centre, Mr. Udo Ndaeyo Okobo, in his remarks, urged students to form the habit of constructing personal study timetables to enhance time management in their studies, adding that studying without well drawn out personal timetable would result in chaotic study plan which is detrimental to successful academic pursuit.
Okobo also charged the students to imbibe the culture of self-discipline in their studies if they must succeed in their academic work.
Other officers who also addressed the students were Mr. Onuoha Mba, Assistant Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ifeanyi Okorie, the ICT Officer, Mrs. Onisojikume Gbaka, Admin. Officer 1, and Miss Josephine Iyara, Assistant Librarian.
The high point of the event was the question and answers session which turned out to be very interactively immersive and rewarding.
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