UNIABUJA seeks routine drug test on students

The Registrar of the University, Dr Mani Ibrahim, who made the call during the University’s Open House programme held at the take-off campus of the University in Abuja, said the routine test would help ascertain the mental health of students.

Cosmopolitan University is one of the 36 newly licenced private universities by the National Universities Commission (NUC), with Ibrahim disclosing that the institution would commence academic activities in September with 16 programmes and three faculties.

While noting that the University would be dedicated to providing a student-centred learning experience that is of international standard and innovative, the Registrar said the University authorities were aware of the moral decadence in society and would put all measures in place to ensure that students graduate from the University in character and learning.

He added that the University would pay close attention to students’ safety and deploy proper surveillance systems around the institution to monitor their conduct and activities.

He said, ”We are in the process of developing our drug policy, which will allow every student coming into the university to go through drug screening.

”We are going to work with parents and the community to carry this out so that we can ensure a drug-free society,” he said.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Carl Adams, said that the vision of the university is to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) in all aspects of learning in the institution, leveraging information and Communication Technology (ICT).

He added that the University aims to produce top-quality graduates who are not just globally competitive but also have high entrepreneurial skills to function effectively in society.

He said, “If we want this to be the best place for students, everything we do here is top-quality learning activity, We want to support students to be the best they can be without compromising quality.”

”In education, we want to gain an international footprint and international expertise by looking at the best in the world.

So the idea is, Why send somebody to London, Berlin, or New York to get an international good-quality experience when we can have it here?”

”And we want to keep those students here to develop them. We want our students to be thought leaders, not just in Nigeria but around the world.”

”We are making our students at the forefront of technological thinking, not just looking at technology but engaging with it so they are able to understand, analyse, evaluate, and apply the technology to real-world problems,” he said.

He noted that the university is in the process of recruiting lecturers from both local and international sources, noting that while emphasis would be placed on excellence, both academic and non-academic staff would be trained to be able to deliver on the vision of the institution.

Some of the programmes approved by the National Universities Commission to be run by the university include Accounting, Business Administration, Economics, Entrepreneurship, International relations, criminology, and security studies.

Others are Health Information Systems, Nursing Science, Public Health, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information systems, and Software engineering, among others.