FCE Okene awards certificates to 11,947 graduants
It was a day of celebration as the Federal College of Education, Okene awarded 11,947 graduands with the National Certificate in Education (NCE) and Professional Certificate in Education (PDE) at the 15th Combined Convocation of the institution.
The convocation also saw three prominent Nigerians awarded with Fellowships,including former Inspector General of Police Alhaji Ibrahim Kumasi,Justice Alfer Belgore and former Director General Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation, Dr Tom Adaba.
Provost of the College Dr Iyela Ajayi revealed that a total number of 9,625 NCE regular were graduated alongside 2,274 Sandwich and 48 Professional Diploma in Education graduands from 2004/2005 to 2015/2016 sets of the institution.
He said that the 15th Combined convocation was a ”memorable, remarkable and auspicious one” in the life of the college as the last convocation of the institution was held in 2006, more than a decade ago.
Iyela reiterated his call to government to increase the minimum qualification for teaching in colleges of Education to Master Degree since the minimum for universities is Ph.D.
”If we have to improve the quality of teaching, there is need to improve the qualification of teachers to minimum of Masters Degree”, he explained.
The provost said that all the 29 NCE programmes run by the college had 100 per cent accreditation by the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) just as the degree programmes had 100 per cent accreditation from the National Universities Commission (NUC).
The institution, according to him, commenced degree programmes in affiliation with the University of Ibadan (UI) in 2013 and recorded five First class in 2015 with another 13 First class graduates in 2016.
He said that the institution sponsored many qualified members of staff for higher degrees especially Masters and Doctorate degrees while many others were sponsored to acquire First Degrees, Higher National Diploma (HND) and National Diploma (ND).
Idris Ahmed, Lokoja.
