This came after the Church bought a 180-hectare of land worth $2 million from landowners at the old LDA land on North Guadalcanal.
Co chairman of JCPU Taskforce, Bishop Terry Brown told the media yesterday they are now in the process of drawing up proposal for the site building, topographical survey, the budget and final proposal will be available for funders in November.
He said the university will have two faculties namely Bishop Patterson Theological College and Education College.
The Bishop Patterson Theological College is currently situated at Kohimarama in West Guadalcanal.
"The Bishop Patterson Theological College will be moved to the new site and a new education faculty because there’s a great need for teacher trainees in the country,” Bishop Terry said.
"Part of this programme because of no buildings, the Church of Melanesia will begin some of the teachers' training later this year to help the University," he said.
Bishop Brown said historically, Church of Melanesia has involved in the education in the communities through Primary and Secondary and provides Diplomas and Degrees in the Theological College.
However, he said it's time now the Church of Melanesia moves into University.
Bishop Terry said local fundraisings are going on and hope to get some supports from the National Government eventually, oversea donors, aid partners, Non Government Organisations and so forth.
As part of the of commencing the project, the Church of Melanesia will launch a Blessing and Fundraising Drive at Saint Barnabas Cathedral 9.30am tomorrow.
Prime Minister Danny Philip and Speaker of Parliament Sir Allan Kemakeza have been invited to attend the launching.
Archbishop David Vunagi and Project Coordinator, Henry Zimbo also attended the Press Conference.
Archbishop Vunagi added: "We know to build a university is going to be very expensive. It's not going to be easy but we want to face it head on."
"We feel it's important for the country especially when education is very expensive and we cannot afford to send all our people overseas.
"At least we can bring tertiary education home," he said.
He said this is a dream the Church would like to undertake for the good of "our nation".
Archbishop Vunagi said the church has two governments that are Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
He said this is because the Church extends to Vanuatu and New Caledonia as well.
"We hope the our Government and Vanuatu Government will recognise the importance of this University so that they also come on board.
"We also have partner churches in overseas which we hope to contact and even organisations that we know of. We hope they will also come on board," he said.
Therefore, he said straight after the launching on Saturday, they will start working seriously on fundraising both locally and overseas.
He said the idea to have University has been floating around for quite a while now.
"We feel to kick start rather than talking about it over the years. But it's good that we better start taking some actions," he said.
Meanwhile, Solomon Star understands Seven Day Adventist Church is working on a proposal to build a University here as well.
By EDDIE OSIFELO
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