Elizade University to graduate 964 students, 116 with first class

Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin in Ondo State, will graduate 964 students at its 10th and 11th combined convocation, with 116 of them finishing with first-class degrees.

The Vice-Chancellor announced the figures at a press conference on Friday. Punch gave his name as Prof. Philip Oguntade, while Tribune spelled it Prof. Philip Oguntunde. The ceremony covers the 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 academic sessions and holds on Friday, November 13, 2026.

Of the total, 884 will receive bachelor's degrees and 80 will receive postgraduate qualifications. The undergraduate class is made up of 358 students from 2024/2025 and 526 from 2025/2026.

Beyond the 116 first-class graduates, 398 finished with second-class upper, 299 with second-class lower, 69 with third class and two with pass degrees.

The Vice-Chancellor said the results reflect the students' commitment, the dedication of academic staff and the university's insistence on standards and quality assurance. He said the graduates had been trained in intellectual ability, professional competence, entrepreneurial initiative and ethical responsibility.

New programmes and accreditation

The university said it has secured approval from the National Universities Commission (NUC) to start a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programme after a resource verification exercise. It already runs Nursing Science and Medical Laboratory Science.

The Vice-Chancellor also said the Council of Legal Education raised the university's Law admission quota from 70 to 120 after a re-accreditation in July 2026, and that the Nursing Science quota was increased too.

He said all six programmes assessed during the NUC's October/November 2025 accreditation exercise got full accreditation: Law, Accounting and Finance, Microbiology, Business Administration, Human Resource Management and Computer Science.

He said the third set of Nursing Science graduates recorded 100 per cent success in the Registered Nurse and Registered Midwife examinations, while Medical Laboratory Science students and the 2024/2025 Law graduates who sat the Nigerian Law School Bar examinations also recorded 100 per cent success.

He added that Mechatronics Engineering, Software Engineering and Public Health have been introduced, and that postgraduate Architecture programmes leading to M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees have NUC approval.

On research, he said the Department of Biological Sciences won an ERASMUS+ grant worth £385,094, and that the university plans a China-Africa Joint Research Laboratory with the Northwest Institute of Ecological Environment and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

What happens next

The convocation lecture will be delivered by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, on Thursday, November 12, at the newly completed 2,500-capacity Beatrice Ademolawe Ojo Multipurpose Auditorium.

The university will confer an honorary doctoral degree on Justice Babatunde Adejumo, Administrator of the National Judicial Institute. The main ceremony holds on Friday, November 13, followed by a thanksgiving service at St. Michael's Anglican Church, Ilara-Mokin, on Sunday, November 15.

For families in Ondo and beyond, the event marks another set of graduates entering the job market, many in law, health and technology fields where the university says its students have done well in professional exams.