By Jonathan Ugbal
The Cross River University of Technology will on Saturday award 18 students first class degrees in its 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th combined convocation ceremony says the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Anthony Owan-Enoh.
“We are quite happy as a University that after that after past failures of several attempts in the past to organize convocation ceremony, we are at least today, beginning a combined one,” Owan-Enoh told journalists at the pre convocation press briefing at the Varsity’s senate chambers in Calabar, the Cross River State capital where he disclosed the number of people to be awarded degrees and explained why only 18 students bagged first class degrees in 5 years.
“We have five sets is students who are graduating with a total of 6,800 bachelor degree students who are actually going to graduate by this celebration and 293 post graduate students.
“Totally, for all this five years, we have 18 first class of course of note. At a time when the issue of first class in the country has become almost too liberalized, for five years, we have only been able to produce 18 first class.
“We believe that quality is not that which is too open as only very few truly deserve that honor of first class. That is why for five years only 18 students have qualified for that coveted degree,” he said.
The VC also said his administration has achieved visible and invisible feats which actually called for celebration but said he won’t give “the details of why we have had problems organizing previous convocations.”
He said the visible achievements include the improvement of the infrastructure, kick off of the staff primary school but posited that: “You can have all the infrastructure, all of the skyscrapers, what is actually import that you find in the university is the content and I consider that very salient.”
On the invisible areas, Prof. Owan-Enoh said that the timely release of results, conference marking of examination papers, digitizing all results from the inception of the Varsity, increase of the subvention by the state government which will put labor crisis to an end as well as the approval of the visitor to expand the curricula formed part of this.
These, according to the VC was because the convocation was “a celebration of transformation of the University. As a community, as a university of four campuses, when we flash back to our distant past, we are quite excited of our very modest achievement. And so, a ceremony such as this gives us an opportunity to make a statement to the world how we feel and of course if any challenges.”
Amendment Of University Law
He said that the Governor, Senator Ben Ayade who is the visitor to the institution has approved the expansion of the courses offered by the institution.
He said Mr. Ayade “has granted us permission to expand the university, to make it a conventional university in the country.
“Of course we are now going to bring all the courses, liberal arts and all to expand the opportunities for Cross Riverians to go to school in all the fields; history, literature, political science, economics and all rest.
“So, CRUTECH is going to expand.”
He said the manager was waiting for the amendment of the University law by the state House of Assembly.
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