National Open University of Nigeria

Any thoughts on the validity and utility of the doctoral programs from the National Open University of Nigeria?

 

Valid? Sure, for the reason Steve stated. I agree with his comment about utility, too.

National Open University of Nigeria is not one of the top 2,122 universities listed by The Times.

If I'm reading things correctly, it is almost free.

Doing a doctorate by short- or non-residential means has several well-documented limitations that may or may not matter to each individual. This is true regardless of where you actually earn your degree.

 

I would love to earn a degree from an African university, preferably Nigeria since I fell in love with the country some 16 years ago. The M.S. in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution seems attractive.

I sent them an email to ask if international students are eligible for admissions. I know some open universities require students to take exams at a local center.

 

How about teaching in higher ed stateside?

 

These rankings are actually useless. There are massive conflicts of interest. For example, Russian universities moved up the ranks after contracting with QS services;

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210501083053372

 

Quote: "It is claimed that THE (Times) is one of the famous ranking systems because of the reputational survey it uses. However, data in the survey obtained from university staff is a clear threat to the ranking's reliability owing to validity concerns (Waltman et al., 2012). This is addressed in the next part of this paper. Most academics know in detail only their internal networking and only a few reputable universities. They may know the top ten universities in the ranking, but further down the list there may be a prestigious and reputable university, which they do not know because it has concentrated on different fields not relating to their areas of expertise. The great majority of university rankings may be based mainly on universities' images attained through their marketing in a few countries, and also on hearsay evidence that might be misleading. One of the main problems in THE ranking is normalisation. According to THE, data are normalised to account for the variation in the volume of citations. The variations spread across diversified areas and field subjects. THE claims that universities with high research activities in subjects with areas having a high number of citations, do not gain an advantage over those with less cited subjects, taking, for example, engineering over history. This claim was disputed by Waltman et al. (2012), as the issue of procedure had never been documented precisely. Apart from citations, 52.75% of the overall data were normalised, where this took into consideration the number of PhDs awarded to staff, institutional income, research income, research productivity, and international collaboration (THE, 2016). This is a problem where more than half the percentage of the indicators has been normalised." Source: Issues in Educational Research, 30(1), 2020 79 University rankings: A review of methodological flaws

 

It would be nice if you included a references list, not just in-text citations.

 

You can see the full list here;

https://www.iier.org.au/iier30/fauzi.pdf

 

Any idea regarding the tuition at this school?

 

I doubt this is unique to African PhDs. It is competive enough getting a faculty position, particularly tenure-track, with an American Ph.D. So, international Ph.Ds are at a disadvantage.

Here are several Ph.Ds from Africa with full-time faculty positions in the U.S.

Julius Agbor
https://catalog.vanguard.edu/administration-faculty/

Fetea, Mirela
https://catalog.germanna.edu/content.php?catoid=4&navoid=120

Derek Hook
https://www.duq.edu/academics/faculty/derek-hook

Franco Barchiesi
https://comparativestudies.osu.edu/associated-faculty-department-comparative-studies

Stan Chu Ilo*
https://las.depaul.edu/academics/catholic-studies/faculty/Pages/Stan-Chu-Ilo.aspx

Oluwatoyosi (Olu) Owoeye
https://www.slu.edu/doisy/faculty/owoeye-olu.php

Felix Omoruyi
https://www.tamucc.edu/files/php/views/faculty-details.php?profile=Felix_Omoruyi

*His second Ph.D. was from UNISA, so perhaps no bearing on his employment.

 

Good to know, although I wasn’t thinking merely in terms of the US. What about in terms of adjunct work at the grad level stateside?

 

That's still too-broad of a question since there are many ways one might teach in higher education.

The degree itself--and the process for earning it--would not be ideal for earning a traditional full-time academic position, tenure-track or otherwise.

But if a school was wanting to hire a person--the person--and that degree happened to check a box, it might be okay. But that can be said regarding just about any doctorate earned by distance learning.

 

That's too easy when the result is something you don't want. I think fine distinctions should be avoided, but general observations from these rankings are certainly reasonable.

 

The page on tuition and fees indicates it is less than $100 for the first year, and about $40 for each subsequent year. That seems absurdly low, but might not be if (a) it is heavily subsidized by the government and (b) it does not admit foreigners.

 

It might check the square, if that square needs to be checked. Or it might not. Just because something looks acceptable on paper doesn't mean it is in real life. So, it's hard to say.

 

Something I don't want? On what basis did you come to that conclusion, may I ask?

I trust smaller rankings with more modest goals, preferably local ones. Whenever I hear of about a ranking of all the world's universities across multiple subjects, I become skeptical. The methodological flaws have been demostrated time and time again.

 

Many Nigerians earn just around $100 per month.