The Chairman, Governing council, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Isa Yuguda has promised to run an open door policy to guide the institution’s operation in the next five years.

Yuguda, a former Governor of Bauchi State, was speaking with journalists after his maiden meeting with the university’s council in Abuja on Friday.

He assured the university community that his council would not interfere with the operations of the university management.

Yuguda said,”Wwe must ensure everybody play the games by the rules to succeed and we will be happy to receive any constructive criticism that would be of great benefit to the institution.

“We know what it takes to fail an organisation. One of the symptoms of breakdown of universities is when they don’t follow the constitution that guides them.

“We will not allow anyone of us to interfere in whatever the executives are doing and so we must ensure everybody play the game by the rules.

“We are here to identify problems and proffer proper solutions to them.”

When asked what he would be doing differently to garner funding for the institution, Yuguda pledged to close the financial gap so the institution could function optimally.

“We will put ourselves together to get what is required of the institution to function optimally.

“If we have financing gap, we will find a way to bridge it by mobilising resources not only from government but also from private and international organisations.

“We will ensure NOUN is adequately funded to satisfy the mandate of the university,” he added.

On his part, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Femi Peters, said the institution was not anticipating any fears of any discord between the council and management of NOUN.

Peters expressed the hope that with the crop of intellectual mind of Yuguda to guide the management of the institution in the next five years, NOUN would continue to take its place.

He urged the public to disregard the perception that its students were half baked, while enjoining the public to criticise its curriculum content which could be gotten online.

“Generally, the public has the perception that our students are half baked. I assure you that all the contents of what we teach can be gotten online and can as well be criticised.

“The National Universities Commission (NUC) has accredited 95 per cent of our programmes.”Every university are now turning to open university to learn on how to deliver lectures using technology because we have infused technology into learning and teaching,” he said.

The vice-chancellor also explained that its students would now enjoy the student loan sponsorship introduced by the government.

Peters said that the earlier misrepresentation that the students of open university would not enjoy the loan had been corrected.

It was reported that Yuguda was among the over 500 eminent Nigerians constituted by President Bola Tinubu in the governing councils of federal tertiary institutions.