International Open University
online, distance-learning institute in the Gambia
The International Open University (IOU) is a private distance education university headquartered in Kanifing, The Gambia. It was founded by Bilal Philips, in 2007 and offers undergraduate and graduate degrees.
History
The university was Initially established in 2001, but temporarily ceased operations. In April 2007, it reopened under the name Islamic Online University with a greater offering of completely free short courses. On January 13, 2020, it was announced that the institution's name has been changed to the International Open University.
Ernest Bai Koroma, the chancellor of the University of Sierra Leone (USL) welcomed the idea of establishing the IOU type Islamic institution. In 2014, the Niger State Government paid the International Open University's Bachelor of Arts school fees for 35 students that registered from the state.
As of 2018, the International Open University is amongst the most ethnically diverse universities in the world.
In 2018, the International Open University's programs were ranked among the six best online Middle Eastern Studies programs by Successful Student, although by June 2020 they had been removed from this list.
In 2021, the online Kenyan newspaper Tuko ranked the International Open University among the top accredited distance learning universities in Africa, along with the University of Johannesburg, the University of Zambia, the University of South Africa, the University of Nairobi and the University of Pretoria, in addition to few other universities.
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This entry incorporates text from “International Open University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.