Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo University will on Friday 12 December formally churn out 9,094 graduates at the university’s 40th convocation ceremony.

Prof. Titi Kuku, who represented Prof. Bamitale Omole, the Vice Chancellor, at a pre-convocation news conference in Ile-Ife, state of Osun, further disclosed that of the figure, 127 students bagged the first class degree.

Kuku said that the graduands were drawn from the thirteen faculties in the university.

He said that 2,360 students made second class upper, while 4,256 students graduated with second class lower division.

According to him, 1,233 passed out with third class and 123 graduates with ordinary pass degrees.

Kuku explained that 394 graduands would be conferred with postgraduate diplomas, 2,755 with Masters’ degrees, 73 with Masters of Philosophy, while 150 would be conferred with Doctors of Philosophy degrees.

Kuku, quoting the VC, promised automatic scholarships for any of the first class graduates interested in working in the university as graduate assistants and are expected to enrol for their masters degrees.

Kuku reiterated the previous achievements of the institution such as its consistency in research work, adding that the positive result of these achievements had contributed to human development in diverse ways.

According to him, the OAU pioneered research in the chemotherapeutic effects of Fagara Xanthozyloides on sickle cell anaemia.

“It was also the first university in Nigeria to carry out the first separation of Siamese Twins and pioneered the introduction of entrepreneurship education at the undergraduate level, which has now been adopted nationally,’’ Kuku said.

Kuku stated that the OAU was rated as the number one university in Nigeria for three consecutive years by the Nigerian Universities’ academic bodies.

“It is on record that the OAU is the leading university in Nigeria in Information and Communication Technology, with Internet Access Bandwidth of 600 Mbps, which is the largest in the entire Nigerian University system.

“OAU is also a centre of excellence in software engineering in the entire Nigerian university system and the only university which boasts of a Telepresence Studio with a Cloud Computing Environment, among others,’’ he said.

Kuku pledged that the institution would continue to deepen on its research endeavours and ensure relevant curricular, so that their students would be globally competitive and its educational standards would be maintained.