First thing first, debunk any information that says that NOUN is cheap, easy or stressless compared to the regular conventional universities.

Permit me to burst your burbles, the standard in the National Open University of Nigeria has proven more challenging compared to the regular universities.

At the National Open University of Nigeria, getting the legit and timely information when needed will save you a lot of stress.

That is why these facts will change everything you know about NOUN.

This article is a bit lengthy, but trust me, it will be worth your time.

What is the Award of Bachelor’s Degree in NOUN

To be awarded a Bachelor’s Degree in the National Open University of Nigeria, it is expected that from 100 level you must run your programme within a minimum of eight semesters, which is equivalent to four years or maximum of sixteen semesters which is equivalent to eight years.

For students who secured admission through direct entry, a minimum of six semesters, which is equivalent to three years, or a maximum of twelve semesters, which is equivalent to 6 years, without the General Studies (GST) Courses.

For students who secured admission through direct entry, they must obtain a minimum total credit unit of 90-credit units depending on their programme.

How does the NOUN Student Calendar work

As a student in the National Open University of Nigeria, your academic calendar begins immediately after the completion of your first semester registration.

The maximum semesters starts counting from the year you were admitted, but if you abandoned your studies for too many semesters, you may not be awarded a degree certificate.

Before a student in NOUN is awarded a certification, the student must pass at least one elective course in a semester.

Also, students must pass 18 credit units of GST Courses as intentionally highlighted by the Senate in the National Open University of Nigeria.

What is Study Center in NOUN

A study center in NOUN is more or less an annex of the National Open University of Nigeria where NOUN staff are fully functional, providing every guide both new and old students in NOUN need throughout their academic journey in the National Open University of Nigeria.

At the study center, all personnel of the National Open University of Nigeria are structured in the order of hierarchy in line with their roles.

Here we have the following offices, titles, and personnel:

• The office of the DIRECTOR
• The office of the COUNSELOR
• The office of the FACULTY OFFICER
• The office of the ACCOUNTANT
• The office of the IT OFFICER
• The office of the LIBRARIANS/STORE KEEPER
• The office of the CSO
• The office of the Head JANITOR

Who are my study center officials

DIRECTOR: This is the first line man. The number of people in a study center. He is the head of the study center and meeting with him will be on demand or arrangement.

COUNSELOR: Just as the name says, the counselor is responsible for guiding students through their studies in NOUN.

They are very much accessible and are also friendly.

They are known as “Students’ best friend” in the National Open University of Nigeria.

The counselor provides proper direction for students that seek it. The direction provided is not limited to certain faculties or departments, rather it goes as far as everything that concerns the National Open University of Nigeria.

They are also referred to as a pool of NOUN knowledge as they can provide answers to almost all questions a student may ask about NOUN.

Statistics have shown that an average counselor in NOUN at each study center can provide the answer to 95.6% of NOUN related questions thrown at them, without a flick.

FACULTY DESK OFFICER: The faculty officers are similar to the counselors in NOUN.

Few distinctions between these two offices. The faculty officer is a pool of knowledge of a particular faculty, while the faculty desk officer is more like the head of a faculty, as he can provide students with the necessary information required by an inquiring student.

ACCOUNTANT: The accountant is responsible for ensuring all matters related to payment made for registration are channeled properly and effectively.

With due passes and stamps, students who are cleared on payments or funding can proceed to doing their registration.[

IT OFFICER: This is the personnel charged with the responsibility of ensuring that any bug or error affects a student, the student portal, TMA portal, and more are been attended to as soon as possible.

NOUN runs on the Open Distance Learning System, meaning most of it’s activities take place online.

Statistics have shown that the INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY department handles over 88.80% of the activities in the National Open University of Nigeria.

So, as a student in NOUN if you encounter any of the following issues, you are expected to visit the IT OFFICE in your study center:

• INVALID MATRICT NUMBER
• INVALID CREDENTIAL ON THE E-TICKET WEBSITE
• ADMISSION CLEARANCE
• PASSWORD RESET
• ADMISSION CLEARANCE
• WALLET FUNDING
• STUDENT EMAIL ACTIVATION
• UNABLE TO UPLOAD BUSINESS PLAN
• AND OTHERS

LIBRARIANS/STOCK KEEPER: This personnel is located where all materials are stored in the study center. This personnel is responsible for disbursing the course materials to students based on their request.

To make the course material disbursement organized, each departments have a specific day for receiving their course materials.

This varies according to the study center. To know more, kindly visit your study center stock office.

How do I get my course materials in NOUN?

In the National Open University of Nigeria, students are liable to getting their materials through three viable means.

1. Getting the hard copy at the study center.
2. Downloading the soft copy of the course material through the web.
3. Get the printed version through a cybercafe closest.

How to get course materials at the study center

As a student of the National Open University of Nigeria, to get your course material requires that you must be in the center stock office.

You must have done your semester registration, and also course registration, as well as exam registration (optional).

Print out the course registration slip and get to your study center at the stock department on the specified day of the week. Present it to the stock keeper, the available course materials are ticked, and it will be given to you.

Students are advised to note that, according to their study centers, there are specific days of the week for each department to come for their course materials.

Terms to Note as a Student or Returning in NOUN

COURSES

Courses are the recipe to your success story academically in NOUN. Courses can be likened to SUBJECTS (Business Studies, Government, Biology, etc) in high schools.

 A course can also be seen as a well-structured write-up, containing a series of modules and units, specifically discussing and expanding a topic sentence.

Series of courses attended to by a student (tma and exam) makes the student’s CGPA.

The combination of a series of carefully selected courses structured to be taken for a certain period of time ( according to the student’s discipline) translates into a programme and then an awarding of a degree after a successful completion.

COURSE CODE

Course codes are tags showing the identity of a particular course. These codes are shortened for easy identification.

As it is, a course is attached to a code and a title in full. This is lengthy and could be confusing, so using the course code without the title is one way of identifying a particular course easily.

Let’s take for example, GST101 is a course code with the course title:

USE OF ENGLISH AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS.

As you progress, so do your courses change, because the courses are arranged according ti the level of difficulties.

Let’s take for example

Level	Semester	Course
100	First	GST101
100	Second	GST102
200	First	GST201
200	Second	GST202

COURSE CREDIT IN NOUN

The course credit is a means to an end, and not an end in itself. The course credit is how a course is further broken down into units of measurement.

SEMESTER IN NOUN

A semester in the National Open University of Nigeria is about 4 – 5 months depending on the academic calendar for the academic section.

A Semester could also be twelve weeks, excluding examination period.

In the National Open University of Nigeria, there are two semesters, which make a section.

Except if the academic calendar is altered, a case like what was witnessed in the 2024/2025 academic calendar, a three-semester system due to TMA malpractice issue.

NOUN offers two semesters of study per year: January to March and July to September.

What are CORE or MAJOR COURSES in NOUN

Course courses or Major courses in NOUN are mandated courses which students are expected to register in every semester throughout their program.

The core courses are highly essential for each semester as they cumulatively determine if a degree will be awarded at the end of the programme.

Students are advised not to leave any of their core courses unattended. This means all core courses must be registered and passed before the conclusion of a programme in NOUN.

WHAT ARE ELECTIVE COURSES in NOUN

Elective courses are borrowed courses from another discipline.  Electives are added to registrable courses because they are to be written and passed so as to boost a student’s Grade Points for the particular semester and overall effect on the CGPA of the student.

They are not as compulsory as the core courses but they are also necessary.

The elective courses do not have a direct impact on your programme success rate.

This translates that for certain students who do not find doing elective courses necessary, so even though they did not register for elective courses, it might not directly affect their GP OR CGPA of such a student.

Nevertheless, students are encouraged to also register all elective courses as it helps boost the cumulative grade point.

What is a PROGRAMME/DISCIPLINE in NOUN

A programme or discipline in NOUN can be seen as a selected choice of a set of organized courses offered at different levels of study. A programme determines your department and faculty.

Let’s take for example.

Programme	Faculty	Department
BSc. Business Administration	Management Science	Business Administration
BSc. Political Science	Social Science	Political Science
BSc. Biology	Science	Biological Science

To be awarded a degree in any programme in NOUN, such a student must have completed and met up with all requires as in place of passsing all core and elective courses and be free of all financial obligations (not owing).

What is TMA in NOUN

Before we dive into what the TMA’s are in NOUN, I strongly advice new students ( 100 level first semester ) to seek a professional guide from Tutor Ayo before attempting their TMA’s.

TMA as popularly known is an acronym for Tutor Marked Assignment, which serves as both attendance, class works, or test conventional adversities take to match up with the 60/70% of the exam.

In NOUN, the total grade apportioned to each course is 100%. This is further broken into 30% and 70%, making it a total of 100%

The TMA has a 30% from the 100% while the exam has 70%.

If a student can secure a minimum of 20/30 of a maximum of 30/30 in each of the registered exams, and secures a minimum of 30/70 in each of the examinations written, which is a total of 50/100, which makes a grade C (Credit).

Each course has 3 TMA’s each. Let’s take for example.

Read more about TMA in NOUN, click here!

COURSES	ANALYSI 1	ANALYSIS 2	ANALYSIS 3	Total
GST101	TMA 1 10 Question	TMA 2 10 Question	TMA 3 10 Question	30
BUS105	TMA 1 10 Question	TMA 2 10 Question	TMA 3 10 Question	30

• Week Nine; Weekly Online Classes in NOUN with Tutor Ayo
• Invitation to “Let’s Grow Together AKA Content is Wealth”
• ACC206; COST ACCOUNTING CLASSES IN NOUN WITH TUTOR AYO
• ACC206; INTRO TO COST AND MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING CLASSES
• Weekly NOUN Online Classes with Tutor Ayo Week Eight

How are exams written in NOUN

Writing of examination in NOUN is categorized into two. They are the CBT and the POP examinations.

Computer-Based Test or Electronic-EXAMS in NOUN

As the name says, the Computer Based Test/Examinations is an electronic form of examination comprising of Objectives and sub-objectives questions.

Students in their 100-level first semester to 200-level second semester take a computer-based test, as required by the management of the National Open University of Nigeria.

The It’s conducted for students from first year (100L) to second year (200L)

The Pen on Paper Exam in NOUN

The Pen on Paper exam is totally different from the Computer-Based Exam. The Pen on Paper exam is conducted for students in their 300 level first semester and above.

As the name says, Pen on Paper, it is handwritten when the students write the exam manually, using an answer script/booklet to provide answers to questions from the exam questions booklet.

What is the question, Structure of the POP Exam in NOUN

The question structure of the POP examination is very different from that of the computer-based test.

Here, students are usually presented with a minimum of 4-5 questions, of which each question might have a sub-question, e.g, Question 1a. 1b. 1c. or Question1i. 1ii. 1iii.

Statistics have shown that 99.9% of courses come with having question one as compulsory.

Let’s take for example, GST302. With a total of 6 questions. “Question 1 is compulsory and answer, and the other 3 questions.

Question 1, might have a list of sub questions getting to 1i, 1ii, 1iii, 1iv, and 1v.

Question 1 will carry the highest score. For example, the question 1 might be graded 20 marks while others are graded 10 – 5 marks per course.

What does CO Mean in NOUN

CO is an abbreviation for Carry Over. Carry Over is a grading system that signifies that a course has been failed due to poor TMA and Exam scores.

When a student registers for a course and the exam, to pass such a course, the student is expected to achieve a minimum score in both the TMA and the exam.

Let’s take for example.

TMA	EXAM	SCORE	GRADE
15	35	50	C
25	20	45	D
20	41	61	B
28	12	40	E
30	08	38	F

From the above table, it is seen that the student in question failed GST105 because the grade was below 40.

What to do HAVING A CARRY OVER in NOUN

When you have a carry over, it means you have failed the exam and not the course. So, without panic, all you need to do is to register for the exam of the particular course you had a CO.

In the case of  CO, you do not need to re-register the course, rather you are expected to register only the exam of the course.

What does NO EXAM mean NO EXAM Mean (NE) in NOUN

When a student registers for a course, writes the TMA, and prepares for the exam, but unfortunately, the student was unable to sit for the exam.

Such a situation will be tagged NE on the student result.

It might also be a case of where the student wrote the eam (POP) but was unable to submit the answer script/booklet.

What does NO TMA (NT) mean in NOUN

This happens when a student could not successfully submit all the TMA 1 – 3 as expected.

How can I get regular classes for my courses in NOUN

To get regular classes throughout the semester and even during exams, all you need to do is to join the private class.

This is where you will find accountable tutors, who will walk you through all your courses throughout the semester.

If you are interested in this, click here and get a Tutor Now!

In Conclusion

Students in the National Open University of Nigeria are best of their kind in all industry cut across the globe. Timely Information and proper guide is what we make available.