The National University Commission (NUC) has authorised eight new courses at Salem University Lokoja.
Prof. Alewo Johnson-Akubo, the Vice Chancellor (VC), disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lokoja on Friday.
The VC informed NAN that the university plans to start the courses in the 2024/2025 academic year.
He mentioned that the new programs include Nursing, Anatomy, Physiology, Medical Laboratory Science, Public Health, Software Engineering, Cybersecurity, and Data Science.
Johnson-Akubo stated that the approval was notified to the university’s management via a letter dated October 2 and signed by Mr Chris Maiyaki, the acting NUC Executive Secretary.
The vice chancellor, who expressed his gladness over the approval, described it as a welcome development that could lift the university to greater heights.
“Salem University Lokoja is growing and expanding by the day in view of the approval of more courses by NUC.
“It’s our belief that these eight new programmes will open up opportunities for the teeming youths to pursue their desired goals and aspirations.
“This is against the backdrop of the new trend of dearth of health personnel occasioned by the ‘japa’ and other syndromes in the country.
“Only recently, the commission issued us approval to run Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and other postgraduate programmes in Law, Accounting, Criminology and Security Studies, Business Administration, Public Administration, Microbiology, and Computer Science.
“These approvals to us are timely and very huge encouragement to us as citadel of learning in the north central zone of Nigeria,” he stated.
According to him, the approvals were consistent with the university’s mission and goal as a citadel of learning.
He went on to say that Salem University’s mission was to teach and nurture change agents who were mentally alert, spiritually active, and intellectually developed enough to transform the world.
