Two hundred pioneer students recently bagged their Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Nexford University in Lagos in what has been described as a milestone for the institution.
Country director of the University, Ms. Olamidun Majekodunmi, said her meeting with Nexford’s founder and CEO, Fadl Al Tarzi laid the foundation for bringing to Nigeria a next generation university where learners progress based on the mastery of competencies, could achieve affordable, high-quality learning and be adequately prepared specifically for today’s world.
“A new way of learning that could forever change the way higher education is delivered, if done right. I knew how much we needed a Nexford in Nigeria and I fought to make sure Nigeria became a primary market.
“Today marks a major milestone and also emphasizes the impact of a vehicle of disruption like Nexford to society at large. We must be proud of what we’ve all achieved together as we celebrate this set of 200 pioneer MBA graduates from Nigeria alone. This is only the beginning.” Majekodunmi said
Senior Pastor of Trinity House Church, Ituah Ighodalo, hailed the role virtual education played during the pandemic in relation to how it made learning easy for the graduands.
He said, “I want to congratulate the graduands. I think they have moved to the next level of education. Virtual education where you can receive education anywhere in the world and education-knowledge is power. Without knowledge, the people are defeated, the more knowledge and exposure you can have, the more you can be an international citizen, the better you are.
“In the last 18 months, young people have not been able to go to any university because of the pandemic and the ASUU(Academic Staff Union of Universities) strike. Online education is fast becoming a lifeline for our schools.”
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Founder of Andela, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji said, “It is important for us to understand where the world is going now, which is that all of a sudden, there is a huge shift from natural resources being the primary source of the country’s wealth to human resources. That is why the work that Nexford is doing is very important.
“Over the next 15 years, we are going to be over 300 million people and we don’t have any scalable infrastructure for educating our children.”
On her part, Advisory board member of Nexford University and former Minister of Education, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili canvassed public-private partnership in Nigeria’s education sector.
She said, “It is about the public and private sectors working in harmony. You have to address issues of access, relevance and quality. And it requires government as regulator of education, the standard sectors as well as the private sector, with a lot more money to support the kind of quality faculty that teaches the kind of things that Nexford is able to teach.
“Every university system is determined by the quality of its faculty and curriculum. If you do not work with your private sector for tertiary education, you will be producing graduates that have no business in the economy; so, they will become jobless. It is important to bear that in mind in the way we design education policies.”
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