from EMEKA OKONKWO in Abuja, Nigeria
Nigeria Bureau
ABUJA, (CAJ News) – THE United States-headquartered education technology company, Astria Learning, has established the second electronic campus in as many weeks in Nigeria.
This follows a Memorandum of Agreement with Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), one of Nigeria’s foremost public universities.
This is a major boost in digitalising Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.
Astria is to deliver OAU’s eCampus, a fully online platform that will provide the institution’s accredited programmes to learners across Nigeria, West Africa and the diaspora.
The eCampus is designed to carry that legacy further, reaching students who have not previously been able to relocate to the institution to study.
The OAU eCampus runs on Astria’s education technology stack, including an artificial intelligence-enabled learning management system with retention analytics, a 24/7 academic help desk and the Astria Digital Library, which provides searchable access to over 170 000 academic resources with offline functionality for learners with limited connectivity.
Prof. Adebayo Simeon Bamire, OAU Vice Chancellor, said the eCampus was in line with the university’s strategic plan to expand and extend quality education throughout West Africa and beyond.
“The OAU-Astria model will provide an excellent e-learning experience with a competitive edge at an affordable cost to achieve this milestone,” he said.
Founded in 1962, OAU is recognised across West Africa for academic rigour, research output and the generations of leaders it has trained.
Dr Jeff Bordes, Chief Executive Officer of Astria, noted that the next generation of working professionals, mid-career managers and diaspora Nigerians could not all come to the university’s Ile-Ife campus to study.
“The OAU eCampus brings the university to them, with the same faculty, the same standards and the same degree,” Bordes said.
Through the OAU eCampus, the university will offer accredited undergraduate, postgraduate and professional programmes to working professionals who require flexible study pathways, open access to Nigerian learners in the diaspora, and grow enrolment capacity without large-scale physical infrastructure expansion.
The first cohort under the OAU eCampus model is scheduled for January 2027.
Last week, Astria signed an agreement with the University of Ibadan, Nigeria’s oldest university, for the opening of the latter’s eCampus.
– CAJ News