College partners NCUK, unfolds international law programme

As part of efforts to promote qualitative learning, Oxbridge Tutorial College, Ikeja has unveiled its international year one law degree programme for Nigerian students.

The programme, which is the first of such in any of the centres worldwide, is in partnership with the Northern Consortium of United Kingdom (NCUK) universities, comprising of 17 tertiary institutions across UK, United States (U.S), Canada, Australia and other European countries.

Managing Director of the college, Dr Femi Ogunsanya said their relationship with NCUK, which started 14 years ago, was aimed at equipping the students and preparing them for global competitiveness.

The school was established in 1993 as the first specialist sixth form college in Nigeria and has since inception been preparing students for the Cambridge international examinations.

In recent years, the college has expanded its success to include the delivery of the globally renowned NCUK International foundation year.

The seasoned administrator who lauded NCUK for sound and qualitative learning explained that the international law programme is designed for Nigerian students who after completing the first academic year will proceed abroad to complete the programme in any of the NCUK universities for two years.

She said, “The international year one programme is the first year of an undergraduate and equating it to the Nigerian system, the foundation programme is year one, while the international year one is year two. Therefore, students who have been on the international year one, if they were to return to a Nigerian university would start year three. In the UK, the undergraduate programme is three years and having done the international year one, the student progresses to any NCUK university and do only two years before obtaining a UK qualification.

“We are going to be the very first centre for NCUK in Nigeria.”

They give us the course content, we would then teach and prepare the students, administer examinations and mark their scripts, but we would send all the scripts to NCUK so that whatever score students get, they can present anywhere in the world.
It is not internally moderated as the final grades of the students are actually moderated by the NCUK.”

“I like operations that are transparent and backed by integrity, which was a major factor in our partnering with them. The other thing that won me over is that as a centre in Nigeria, they would audit us to ensure that we are delivering at every point in time and is at par with any other centre worldwide. That gave me the confidence that whatever we are doing at Oxbridge is equitable and globally acceptable because of the mode of operation of NCUK.”

Dr Ogunsanya said the college started with the international foundation year in 2005, but other programmes like masters, pre-masters were suggested along the line.

On the new law programme, the administrator said, “It is student and pocket-friendly for parents because it’s a huge pocket saver and we have calculated how much is saved by keeping the child back one extra year in Nigeria, which came to about N15 to N20 million depending on the university that the student is progressing to. We started with the business stream three years ago and today we are recording another success.”

Market Development Director, NCUK, Mrs Georgina Jones said the consortium recruits students from over 100 different nationalities and Nigeria is one of its largest recruitment groups.

Jones stated that the body is positioned to help students’ access international education through programmes for countries that operate a 12-year educational system.

“NCUK for many years has offered a pathway programme into university which is the international year one. The students doing our courses gain credit exactly the same way if they were studying at one of the universities we work with.

Over the last 30 years, we have had over 30,000 students attend schools in the UK US, Canada, Australia, Ireland and other European countries as well. The good thing about the international year one is that it helps with finances because to stay in Nigeria for an extra two years and do two years in UK is better and affordable.

From our foundation year, we know that over 95 percent of our students pass the first year of university so we have a very high pass rate.