Repositioning National Teachers’ Institute in Nigeria for Optimum Open Distance Learning Service : Challenges and Prospects

The Nigerian national policy on education has over the years recognized the place of open and distance learning in achieving lifelong education and affirms that lifelong education shall be the basis of the nation’s education policy. Further, the policy states that at any stage of the educational process after junior secondary education, an individual shall be able to choose from either continuing full-time studies, combining work with study, or embarking on full time employment without excluding the prospect of resuming studies later. A critical appraisal of the scope of open and distance learning practice at any level of education in Nigeria against the backdrop of the long- standing recognition of its potential for increasing access to education for all socio-cultural groups, unfortunately, reveals a glaring mismatch between policy and practice. The National Teachers' Institute (NTI) was setup in 1976 to serve as a Distant Learning Educational Institution in order to provide additional means of tackling the challenges facing Teacher Education in Nigeria. Also, through its most recent annual nation-wide MDG workshops, it has retrained over 800,000 teachers since 2006. The Institute has successfully trained a number of teachers in various programmes while many others are presently on. Six degree progammes are to start by January 2015 while more programmes will be introduced as the Institute progresses. Its plan is to also establish School of Educational Innovation and a National Centre for Teaching of English in 2015. The demands of these initiatives are high. This paper recommends that concerted efforts that would bring about improved finances leading to full on-line operations, expanding the band width of the website and radio station is urgently needed. It might be necessary to invite external observers/quality assurance assessors with a view to using their comments to rate NTI programme internationally. This is expected to be the beginning of wooing foreign students from far and near for her ODL programmes. It is envisaged that such inspection would be necessary only when the degree programmes have taken off successfully