Fountain University Is Open To Students, People Of All Faith -VC

By Ayobami Agboola, Osogbo

The management of Fountain University, Osogbo,  has cleared the air on the insinuations that the university is meant only for Muslim students alone, saying it’s open to people of all faith.

This was made known by the newly appointed vice chancellor of the institution, Prof. Amidu Olalekan Sanni, while speaking to newsmen in his office.

According to him, the university is open to all prospective admission seekers regardless of their religious faith.

Prof Sanni reiterated the management’s readiness to ensure that the university become a preferred institutions among it peers.

Enunciating some of the programmes that the new management has in pipeline, Prof Saani said the institution is in partnership with Duke University, a North Carolina, United States of America (USA), based institution, which would involve transfer of technologies and equipments for the take off of its medical programme.

According to him, as part of measures to further increase the number of courses the institution offers and to also serve one of its core purpose, Fountain University has secured another partnership with Ministry of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia to make the institution a centre for Open and Distance Learning Programme.

He said one of the programmes that would be offered by the Ministry of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia centre is Diploma programme in Arabic, Islamic and International Studies.k

He said the institution would meet proprietors of Arabic schools across the state and impress it on them, the need to teach their students with uniform curriculum to make them eligible for the Diploma programme.

While identifying funding as a major challenge for the institution, Sanni urged the federal government to assist private universities through provision of infrastructural and humanitarian supports for them.

Although, the VC noted the recent declaration by President Mohammadu Buhari that federal government was not ready to fund private universities in the country, he however urged the president to find means of assisting private university operators since they are playing a critical role of educating the populace.

On his plans to address the challenge of funding facing the institution, Sanni said: “we are looking inward to generate funds that can be used for our university. The federal government should consider infrastructural and humanitarian supports, because graduates produced from private universities are also Nigerians.

“With Harvard University in US and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, less than 20 per cent of their funding comes from the government.

“They get funding from grants, donations from private organisations. We are looking inward to generate funds that can be used for our university. We are thinking of Fountain University Ventures to generate funds”.