By Eya, Edith Ngozi
The purpose of the study was to evaluate the Arts Education programme of the National Open University of Nigeria in the South East study centres. The study used the Context, Input, Process, Product evaluative model. The population of the study comprised of 1492 subjects viz 57 academic staff, 75 senior administrative staff and 1360 Arts Education students of the NOUN. Using stratified random sampling a sample size of 424 respondents made of all 57 academic staff, all 75 senior administrative staff and 292 students was drawn for the study. Each stratum of the subjects was served a set of questionnaire for data collection. Both checklist and observation schedule were also used to collect data for the study. The validity and reliability of the instruments were established through face validation and the use of Cronbach Alpha. Means and standards were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistic was used to test hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the study showed that facilities in use in the NOUN study centres for arts education degree programme are adequate; Course materials in use for the implementation of the arts education degree programme of the NOUN in the South East study centres were found to be adequate; support services rendered to the students of arts education degree programme in the NOUN South East study centres are of high extent; senior administrative staff showed a high extent of administration of arts education degree programme while the students indicated a very high extent of administration of the same programme in the South East study centres; there was low extent of compliance to National Universities Commission benchmark with respect to teaching methods used for facilitating arts education degree programme of NOUN in South East study centres; the South East study centres of NOUN had fairly adequate personnel used in the implementation of the arts education degree programme; that funding of the arts education degree programme of NOUN in the South East study centres was found out to be of low extent while the number and graduation pattern of arts education degree programmes are encouraging. These findings and their educatinal implications were discussed based on which recommendations were made. The researcher also drew attention to the limitations of the study and made suggestions for further study.