Manpower
By Chinyere Nwachukwu
Lagos, May 9, 2018 (NAN) Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, says the institution will continue to maintain the tradition of producing top quality manpower for the development of the country.
Ogundipe gave the assurance at the day one of the 2016/2017 49th convocation of the institution on Wednesday in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a visually impaired person was among the 3,320 graduating students, who received first degree certificates.
Giving the breakdown, Ogundipe said that the Faculties of Arts, Education and Environmental Sciences produced 567, 890 and 315 students respectively while 886 and 662 students graduated from the Faculties of Science and
Social Sciences.
According to him, 111 students from the day-one of the convocation made First Class Honours.
A breakdown of the figure showed that Faculty of Arts produced eight, Faculty of Environmental Sciences had 16 while Faculties of Science, Social Sciences and Education produced 55, 19 and 13 First Class Honours respectively.
He said that a total of 245 students received First Class out of the 12,638 graduating students.
“One interesting feature of today’s ceremony is the graduation of the first set of students of the university with Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Chinese Language, after completing their four-year programme and having also spent two years in Soochow University in China.” the vice chancellor said.
He said that 1,050 graduating students finished with Second Class Upper division, 1,440 received Second Class Lower division, 645 passed with Third Class and 68 had Pass degrees.
“The university will continue to maintain the tradition of producing top quality graduates, who can compete favourably with their counterparts locally and globally.”
In an effort to reposition its academic activities, Ogundipe said the university had won the bid to host the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) Centre of Excellence.
“The centre of excellence is to be funded by ARUA with one million dollars (N360.5 million) for the next five years, while the university will provide a counterpart funding of 50,000 dollars.
“It is instructive to note that University of Cape Town in South Africa also won the bid to host two centres of excellence in the entire continent.’’
Meanwhile, Miss Joan Okoroafor, one of the four best graduating students with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.97 from the Faculty of Education, attributed her success to self-discipline, determination and hard work.
Okoroafor, who spoke on behalf of the entire graduating students at the ceremony, gave an assurance that they would work hard to give back to their alma mater.
“I thank the management of the institution for all what we have achieved in the course of our stay here as students and for exposing us to all that we needed to contribute our quota to the development of both the institution and the country at large,’’ she said. (NAN)
CCN/AIB/NKO
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Edited by Abdulfatah Babatunde/Nkechi Okoronkwo