The Federal University of Agriculture (FUNAB), Abeokuta, has begun activities for its 32nd Convocation Ceremony, during which 3,567 students would be graduating with different classes of degrees.
Of the number, 120 undergraduates will be graduating with First Class, I626 finishing with Second Class Upper Division while 1624 will be graduating with Second Class Lower Division.
In addition to this,164 students finished with Third Class while another 33 are graduates of Veterinary Medicine.
The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Babatunde Kehinde, disclosed the figures yesterday at a media briefing on convocation ceremony, holding on Saturday.
The vice chancellor also disclosed that the institution, would also award 30 Postgraduate Diploma, 274 Masters Degrees graduates and 136 PhDs.
Kehinde explained that during the session under review, the university added eight new academic programmes including Library and Information Science, Industrial Chemistry, Cyber Security, Software Engineering among others.
According to the vice chancellor, the university now runs 38 programmes, which are fully accredited, by the National University Commission with 54 departments.
He added that the NUC has approved six research proposals of over N171m for its researchers while many of its scholars equally won international grants amounting to several thousands of dollars, pounds and Euros.
Kehinde hailed the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), for rising to the challenge of funding the universities saying that 19 projects cutting across academics and research are currently being undertaken by the fund in the university.
On the challenge of food shortages facing the country, Kehinde suggested the way out lies in everybody, saying the option of Public-Private- Partnerships should be adopted to drive increase in food production.
He said: “We have done that with 30 organisations and we are already seeing results. I equally encourage that we all embrace backyard farming, we all have to get involved to tackle this challenge”.
The VC also said that the school has received over N133m from National Education Loans Fund for the first batch of1300 students who applied for the students’ loan while another batch of 1638 are waiting to be credited for the year 2025.
The vice chancellor said that the convocation lecture, would be delivered by Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim, the Executive Secretary, National Agricultural Development Fund to address the issue of agriculture frontally.
He said the ceremony, would also feature exhibition of various items and products while two of the institution’s past Vice-Chancellors, Prof. Olusola Oyewole and Prof. Kolawole Salako, who would have some monuments named after them as a mark of honour.
The vice chancellor commended various stakeholders of the university that have contributed to the development of the institution in one way or the other.
He specifically mentioned the Alumni Association of the university, for various things that they have done in the school