Federal Minister for Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani will deliver the 33rd Convocation Lecture of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, FUTA next Thursday

This is just as 195 students completed their various programmes in the university with first-class Honours.

The minister will be speaking on the lecture titled “Knowledge and Research: The Foundation of. Prosperous Economy”

Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Adenike Temidayo Oladiji, disclosed this on Friday at a news briefing heralding the 33rd convocation of the institution which will be rounded up next week Saturday.

Oladiji said the first-class students are among the 3,491 students who would be conferred with first degrees in the nine faculties at the forthcoming convocation of the institution.

The first female Vice Chancellor of the institution disclosed that out of the total number, 195 students have first class, 1,510 have second class honours (upper division), 1,515 students have second class honours (lower division) while 254 and two students are graduating with third class and pass respectively.

The vice chancellor added that Miss Oluwanifemi Favour Olajuyigbe, a student of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering is the best graduating student with a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.93.

She further disclosed that the university will also confer Postgraduate Diploma, Master and Doctoral degrees on 1,806 graduates.

The Vice Chancellor who disclosed that FUTA products were globally recognized announced that efforts were on to catch up with the trending aartificial intelligence, AI, technology.

According to her, “Postgraduate Diploma- 490, Postgraduate Diploma in Management – 61, Master of Business Administration- 86, Masters- 940, PhD-229 “.

“The 33 Convocation Ceremony begins today and peaks on the 17 and 18 of November with the award of Diploma and certificates, first and postgraduate degrees.

“FUTA aspires to be a world-class University of Technology and Centre of Excellence in Training, Research and Service Delivery. Currently, we have active collaborations with universities in the USA, UK, Germany, China, Brazil, India, and Ghana. The details are in FUTA’s Giant Strides XI.

“Visiting professorship and scholar positions for academics from the Diaspora have been instituted to enrich the quality of training and research in the University. Currently, 19 scholars have been engaged. They are from South Africa (6), Namibia (1), USA (1), UK (4) Canada (2), Germany (1), Malaysia (1) and Australia (2) and New Zealand (1).”