A total of 22 students of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), out of the total 22,175 who are participating in the 13th convocation ceremony of the institution bagged first-class degree.
This was made public on Monday during a pre-convocation press briefing to herald the institution’s convocation billed for Saturday April 13 in Abuja.
Out of this number, 15,768 of them are undergraduates while 6,407 are of the postgraduate cadre.
Announcing this, the vice chancellor, Prof Olufemi Peters used the opportunity to congratulate the graduands whom he said went through all the rigours of assessments before they were found worthy of being conferred.
He used the opportunity to show appreciation to the visitor of the university, President Bola Tinubu whom he said wasted no time in appointing a new chancellor for the university in the person of His Royal Majesty, Omo Noba Nedo Uku Okpolokpolo, the Oba of Benin whose investiture, he said, is to hold on Thursday April 11 while the convocation lecture would hold the following day Friday April 12 to be delivered by Prof Elifas Tozo Bisanda, the vice chancellor of the National Open University of Tanzania on the topic: ‘Is western education still relevant for Africa’?
The highpoint of this year’s convocation, according to the VC, would be the conferment of honorary doctoral degree on two eminent Nigerians for their contributions towards the development of society. They include renown industrialist, Innocent Chukwuma, the man behind Innoson Motors and Hajiya Hafsatu Abdullahi, a prominent northern lady activist who has been involved in advocacy for girl-child education in the region.
NOUN, Prof Peters said, is making faster progress both in technology and expansion as according to him, the study centres have, within a short period, increased from 17 to 120 with requests for further expansion.
The National Open University of Nigeria, the VC noted, has been carrying out other activities aside education which unfortunately are not in public view for instance, the economic development of host centres, among other contributions.
