124 bag first class honours as OAU set to graduate 7,209

Adesoji Adeniyi, OsogboThe Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife in Osun State will graduate 7,209 students at its 44th convocation ceremony coming up between Wednesday December 11 and Saturday December 14, 2019.The graduating students are those who have successfully comlpeted their undergraduate and post graduate programmes in the univeristy.At a pre-convocation press briefing, the universitys Vice Chancellor, Prof. Eyitope Ogunbodede, disclosed that 124 would be graduating with first class honours in bachelors degrees.He also disclosed that four eminent Africans would receive the prestigious Honorary Doctorate Degrees the prestigious of the university.According to him, the awardees are the President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, the Nigerias finest marketing communications practitione, Mr. Biodun Olusina Shobanjo; the President of the African Export-Import Bank (AFREXIMBANK), Dr. Benedict Okey Oramah and the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the First Bank of Nigeria Plc., Mrs. IbukunOluwa Abiodun Awosika.Speaking further, Ogunbodede said the OAU has concluded arrangement to introduce entrepreneurial courses to equip its students with requisite skills to carve niches for themselves to be self sustainabile.He said the measure was part of efforts of the university to proffer solutions to the unemployment challenges facing teeming number of graduates being churned out yearly by tertiary institutions across the country.He stressed that the challenge of unemployment among the Nigerian youths, particularly graduates, had made it imperative for the university to not only ensure quality education thay can guarantee them good jobs aftet graduation.READ ALSO:Rwandan President Kagame among four eminent Africans for OAU awardsThe vice chancellor also said the university would train them through the entrepreneurial programmes to become job creators instead of job seekers.He said: We have come to a level where we can not just be graduating numbers but based on what they are able to do. All our faculties have come together to initiate entrepreneur programmes in order to equip all our students, regardless of their courses of choice to equip them with necessary skills to be able create jobs and also become employed.We want to ensure that they would graduate with two certificates, one for the degree and the second one for the entrepreneurial skills, he stressed. We have programmes on fashion designing, woodwork, metal work, photography, arts development among others which would be used to as a back up by our graduates to fit in properly in the labour market. We have adequate equipment, facilities and resources to drive the programme.The Vice Chancellor, who also restated the universitys commitment to agricultural development to support the Federal Governments efforts to guarantee food security for the country, concluded: We have acquired massive land, part of which we have devoted enormously for agricultural programmes. We have collaborated with International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to drive our agricultural programmes and this will go a long way in preferring solution to food scarcity and guarantee food security.
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