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No fewer than 51 students bag first class as Elizade University, Ilara Mokin, Ondo state, even as the university body announced that 484 students will graduate across its 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 academic sessions.
Speaking about the forth-coming convocation ceremonies, the varsity Vice Chancellor Professor Kayode Ijadunola told journalists that 51 students earned first-class honours.
He said, “Across the two sessions of 2022/2023 and 2023/2024, we shall be awarding 484 Bachelor’s degrees and 74 graduate degrees to candidates that have been trained, examined and found worthy, both in character and in learning, to be so admitted to the various degrees of the university.
“These consist of 228 and 256 undergraduate degrees for the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 academic sessions respectively.”
Giving the breakdown, the VC said, a total of 51 graduated with first class, 196 are in the second class upper category, 191 are in the second class lower category and 46 are in the third class category.
“Furthermore, we shall be awarding 16 postgraduate diplomas, 51 masters’ degrees, two Master of Philosophy degrees and five Doctor of Philosophy degrees,” he stated.
Ijadunola noted that the university was growing academically and infrastructurally following the support of its founder, Chief Michael Ade Ojo and the cooperation of the management, staff and students of the private university.
He said, “Since the last convocation, Elizade University set out to achieve a number of goals and outcomes. These included the establishment of additional postgraduate programmes, especially in engineering and law, deployment of additional modern teaching and learning equipment, expansion of our collaborations with local and foreign research partners and institutions, enhancement of our capabilities in research and innovations, the opening of additional students’ halls of residence and students’ dining facilities, renovation and expansion of existing facilities and infrastructure, and the consolidation of existing undergraduate programmes.
“In the last one year, the university hosted NUC resource verification teams to inspect facilities for the take-off of at least three postgraduate programmes. These are the MSc, M.Phil. and Ph.D. in civil engineering; Master of Laws, M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Law and M.Sc Architecture programmes. I am glad to report that all the programmes were approved by the NUC and will be taking off during the 2024/2025 academic session.”
The VC decried the high cost of electricity bills affecting most universities today.
According to the don, “The greatest challenge facing most institutions of higher learning in Nigeria today is the cost of energy that has at least tripled in the last few months, especially the transition to the Band A electricity billing system introduced by the DISCOs. While the monthly bills have become largely unaffordable, power supplies have remained irregular and the university still depends on diesel-powered electrical generators to provide backup power supply at very exorbitant costs.
On the forthcoming convocation ceremony, Ijadunola mentioned that two Nigerians – the businesswoman, Mrs Folorunso Alakija and an oil and gas businessman, Chief Tunde Afolabi would be awarded with honorary doctorate by the university on the convocation.
