Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Thursday joined the 24th convocation ceremony of the Lagos State University (LASU) virtually from the State House, Marina.
Mr Sanwo-Olu, who is self-isolating after contracting coronavirus (COVID-19), awarded a post-graduate scholarship to the varsity’s best graduating student Oladimeji Shotunde for finishing with the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.95 on a scale of 5.0.
The governor rewarded him with a post-graduate scholarship to any university in the world and a N5 million cash prize.
Mr Shotunde, 22, who finished from the Department of Business Administration in the Faculty of Management Science, also got an offer of automatic employment into the state’s public service.
Also, the governor awarded a cash prize of N5 million to the best master’s degree student of the school Sola Olabanjo who finished in Computer Science with the grade point of 5.0.
Sanwo-Olu, who is the visitor to the university, said Shotunde’s record-breaking feat had set a new academic standard for the school, stressing that cash reward was his personal effort at promoting academic excellence and honouring brilliance.
In his address, Sanwo-Olu disclosed that Lagos has started to brace itself for the opportunities in manufacturing driven by application of technology and artificial intelligence to raise the sector’s capacity and output.
He said: “As a government, we have decided to raise our state’s manufacturing capacity by promoting and providing manufacturing education and training. We are prepared to overhaul our education ecosystem through machining and mechanical engineering principles that will prepare our graduates for immediate employment.
“This is being done in collaboration with partners like the University of Pittsburgh, USA. Our goal is to establish manufacturing assistance centres across the State for the purpose of improving our manufacturing capacity.”
Sanwo-Olu approved the construction of a world-class Faculty of Education edifice for LASU which will begin in 2021.
The school graduated 6,197 students for first degree programmes, 916 for post-graduate diploma 916, 825 for academic master’s 825, 1,089 professional master’s and 47 for doctoral degrees.
