Abel Cain, the resource person to the Global Organization on Open Education Resources and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), has disclosed that only about 400,000 candidates out of a total of 1.6 million that sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Nigeria were able to secure admission for 2014/2015 session.
He made this known during a workshop for staff and management of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Lagos.
He described as alarming the inability of candidates to gain admission into various tertiary institutions in the country.
According to him, for the country to overcome this challenge, open and distance learning system of education must be embraced and empowered.
He mentioned that virtually all the leading universities in the world, including Harvard University, Yale University, among others, have adopted MOOCs as a way of opening up access to all categories of students free of charge.
