12,260 new students, no campus commute: Nigeria's open university welcomes its biggest kind of classroom

At a ceremony in Abuja, Miva Open University matriculated 12,260 new students for its 2026 session — learners who will study online, fitting degrees around the jobs, businesses and families that a traditional campus would have forced them to pause. Pro-Chancellor Dr Tunji Olowolafe used the occasion to argue for wider adoption of online learning in Nigeria, saying the old model made too many people choose between education and the rest of their lives, and that continuous, lifelong learning is now essential rather than optional. Matriculation is a beginning, not an outcome — what matters is how many of the 12,260 finish, and what changes for them afterwards. But access is the first gate, and for thousands of working Nigerians it has just opened wider: a university that comes to the student, wherever in the country they happen to be.

SDG 4 · Quality education — Mechanism: institutional program