The management of Osun State University has made all arrangement to conduct its 9th convocation ceremony for 1,946 graduating students for the 2018/ 2019 academic session virtually.
This is coming as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, as the institution strives to keep to the Government COVID-19 guidelines.
The University confirmed that 95 per cent of the graduating students have registered to be part of the convocation ceremony that would be held virtually on September 21, 2020.
The Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Professor Labode Popoola, while speaking on Monday, at the Olagunsoye Oyinlola Auditorium located at the main campus, disclosed that the convocation kits are to be dispatched through courier service.
The Vice-Chancellor added that instead of institution to be complaining about the current situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, they are prepared to conduct the first-ever virtual convocation ceremony in the history of Public Universities in Nigeria.
He said: “this virtual convocation will be our 9th convocation ceremony and the convocation lecture will be delivered by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, a Professor of Economics, Director of the Center for sustainable Development at the Columbia University, New York, and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“We are indeed expectant and so look forward to a thought-provoking lecture on the topic: “The New Normal: Challenges and Opportunities for Tertiary Education.”
Professor Popoola, hinted that the total graduate output of the University for the 9th Convocation captures our grandaunds for the 2018/2019 academic session and it is 1,946.
He explained that the graduands will be conferred with first degree and fifty graduands with higher degrees and Diplomas. Out of this number, 35 bagged first-class degress, representing 1.79 per cent of the total number of grandaunts. He further stated that 603 made second class (upper), 972 made second class (lower), 274 made the third class, while only 10 will be awarded the pass degree.
Popoola stated: “I will be handing one thousand six hundred and forty-six (1,646) convocation kits to the courier service to deliver them to the door steps of our graduands to be able to participate in the first of its kind 9th convocation ceremony of the University virtually from their respective locations.
“Each graduating students has five (5) distinct items and they include the well laundered convocation gown with cap, the convocation brochure, scroll, and a customized souvenir and memorabilia from the Osun State University.
It would be recalled that EDUCARE NEWS had reprted, that Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo, in Ogun State, had in August 20, 2020, held it maiden virtual convocation ceremony, where it graduated 2,169 students, with 66 of them graduating with first class.
