The University of Lagos says 271 students of the institution would be graduating with First Class degrees during its 2017/2018 Convocation ceremonies, scheduled for April 1 to April 5.
The Vice Chancellor of the Institution, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, who disclosed this at a pre-convocation news conference on Wednesday in Lagos, said that 56 of graduands to receive first class degrees were from the Faculty of Engineering.
According to him, a total of 12,811 students would be receiving degrees, diplomas and certificates at this year’s convocation ceremonies.
He said of the total number of graduands, 7,406, representing 57.8 per cent, would bag first degrees or diploma, while 5,405 others representing 42.2 per cent would receive postgraduate degrees.
Giving a breakdown of the classes of degrees, Ogundipe said that a total of 2,277 students would be graduating in the Second Class Upper division, while 3,116 others would graduate in the Second Class Lower Division.
The vice chancellor said that 1, 197 other graduating students would be awarded Third Class.
He said that 131 others were in the Pass category, while 414 of the students will be honoured with degrees or diplomas that were not classified.
“The best graduating students with Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.96 at this year’s convocation are Joedicta Eke, from the Faculty of Pharmacy; Adeniyi Adeyeye, Department of Insurance, and Daniel Ogbechi, Department of Business Administration, both of the Faculty of Management Sciences.
“In the Postgraduate category, we will be awarding 150 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees, three of whom were under my supervision, 4, 771 Masters degrees and 484 Postgraduate diplomas.
“The best PhD Thesis in Science would be awarded to Ayodele Ajibade, of the Department of Metallurgical and Material Engineering, while Oyewole Oyebade of the Department of Philosophy, will receive best thesis award for Humanities.
“Ayodele Ajibade will also receive the overall best Thesis award,” he said.
According to Ogundipe, the university under his watch has pursued an uncompromising academic standard, local and global networks, innovative fund raising mechanism, transformational and transnational leadership as well as accountability in all university processes.
He said that with all of these, the university management was on the path to making the institution greater.
“The strong understanding that research was one of the core obligations of a university and the realisation that governnent or university could not singlehandedly fund research, management had in the last one year attempted to raise awareness about the need for our faculty members to apply and attract more research grants to the institution, especially through multi-disciplinary research.
“We have, however, strengthened our research centres and given them the mandate to pursue research that can attract grants from multi-national corporations and government agencies.
“To further advance research in our university, our Central Research Laboratory has been better equipped in the last one year through donation of a Polyurethane Laboratory worth over N20 million,” he said.
The vice chancellor said that the institution’s Business School was set to take off, and when fully functional, would run short executive courses and professional degree programnes with highly experienced industry personnel as facilitators.
Similarly, he said that the university had also introduced new programnes such as the B.Sc. in Transportation.
