No fewer than 17,759 undergraduate students are set to be graduated from the Taraba State University (TSU), Jalingo, as the institution holds its combined convocation for four academic sessions.
The massive graduation figure comes amid a major expansion of the university’s academic capacity, with all 72 programmes now fully accredited and 23 newly introduced programmes approved by the National Universities Commission (NUC).
The university’s registrar, Mr Joseph Bibinu, disclosed the graduation figure yesterday during a press briefing in Jalingo ahead of the combined convocation ceremony.
He said, 3,084 students would graduate for the 2021-2022 academic session, 4,609 for 2022-2023, 4,666 for 2023-2024 and 5,402 for 2024-2025.
Mr Bibinu also disclosed that 74 of the graduating students emerged with first-class degrees across the four academic sessions – 22 from the 2021-2022 session, 25 from 2022-2023, 15 from 2023-2024 and 12 from the 2024-2025 session.
The registrar added that the overall best graduating students for the respective sessions emerged from the Faculty of Science, including a graduate of the Department of Botany in the 2021-2022 session.
Speaking on the wider development of the institution, the vice chancellor, Prof Sunday Paul Bako, said the university has achieved full accreditation for all its 72 academic programmes after sustained efforts to resolve accreditation challenges.
Prof Bako said, the university initially presented 53 programmes for accreditation before submitting an additional 29 programmes, while other programmes requested by the university community were processed through the Senate and forwarded to the NUC.
According to him, 23 of the additional programmes have now secured NUC approval and are ready for take-off following the provision of the necessary resources and facilities.
