It was celebration time at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, FUNAB as the university held its 33rd convocation with exciting milestones. First, it churned out 104 first class graduates from different faculties and programmes, with Osiama Chinyere of the department of Food and Nutrition as the overall graduating students who finished her academic race with Cumulative GPA of 4.85.
Professor Olusola Kehinde, the vice chancellor, who announced this at the Oluwafemi Balogun Ceremonial Building at the university said, out of the total of 4,141 graduates, “1,771 graduands are in the Second-Class Upper Division, 1,896 earned Second-Class Lower Division, while 285 had Third Class Degrees and only two graduated with Pass. The remaining 41 graduands earned the Veterinary Medicine Degree, which is not classified.” At the post-graduate level FUNAB released holders of 49 Postgraduate Diplomas, 164 Master’s Degrees, and 89 Ph.Ds in various fields.
The vice chancellor, a professor of Animal Science, said the university has got six new programmes approved for it, including Wildlife and Ecotourism Management, Forestry Resource Management, Hydrology and Water Resources Management, Climate Science and Agricultural Meteorology, as well as Cooperative Studies and Development Studies. That is apart from re-introduction of four programmes earlier withdrawn from its faculties. These are the Management Sciences degree programmes, which include Accounting, Banking and Finance, Business Administration, and Economics, delisted by the National Universities Commission during the 2017/2018 academic session.
These now bring to 44 programmes being run by the university. Professor Kehinde further announced improved infrastructure with the addition of the College of Physical Sciences, 240-Capacity Computer Laboratory, Animal Demonstration Laboratory, Veterinary Anatomy Laboratory (Phase I), and Residential Quarters for Principal Officers. Those are not the only developments that the university is celebrating. It is also happy that the 3 megawatts of the World Bank assisted solar power project has reached a significant milestone thereby putting the university on the list of educational institutions that now boast of uninterrupted power supply. With regards to the national student loan, introduced by the federal government, Professor Kehinde said about 5,000 students have benefitted in the school drawing about N840 million from the Nigeria Education Loan Fund, NELFund.
