1,524 STUDENTS TAKE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE AS AFIT CONDUCTS ITS EIGHT COMBINED MATRICULATION CEREMONY
The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), Kaduna, has matriculated 1,542 new students for the 2024/2025 academic session. The Matriculation Ceremony which took place today, 30 November 2024, witnessed massive crowd as parents and relatives thronged Ibrahim Alfa Hall to observe the event. A total of 1,164 new students out of the 3,316 candidates who applied for the degree programmes matriculated while 278 candidates out of the 773 who applied for the diploma programmes participated in the exercise as well as the 82 who came in through the Direct Entry route out of 206. All the 1,524 new students took the oath of allegiance to remain law abiding throughout their studies in the Institute.
It would be recalled that AFIT commenced the training of degree students with the admission of 520 undergraduate students during the 2018/2019 academic session making the admission figure for this year over 100 percent of its previous admission quota. According to the Commandant, AVM SL Rabe, “We have witnessed a remarkable increase of over 100% in admissions. This surge underscores the growing prominence of AFIT and the overwhelming interest from aspiring students, reflecting our ongoing efforts to make AFIT a premier tertiary institution.” He asserted that “despite our rigorous admission standards, the surge in applications reaffirms our commitment to academic excellence”.
AVM Rabe used the opportunity to express gratitude to the Chairman, AFIT Governing Council and Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal HB Abubakar, “for his exemplary leadership and unwavering support, which have been instrumental to our remarkable achievements’. He admonished the students to take their studies seriously and warned that random drug test would be conducted on students periodically and anybody found to have taken drugs would be expelled from the School. He re-echoed the importance of discipline and urged students to study in groups to enhance their performance.
Earlier, the Provost of the Institute, Professor Auwal Kasim, disclosed that the admission process was intensely competitive as only 27 per cent of the entire applicants were successfully admitted into AFIT. He added that the matriculating students were the lucky ones to have gotten the opportunity to study in the hard sought after school. He emphazied that “ AFIT has zero tolerance to any form of violence (physical or verbal), indiscipline, cultism, examination malpractice, drug abuse and improper dressing”. He reiterated that the students were “now the worthy ambassadors of the great institution as they march forward in quest for excellence and added that AFIT, as the only tripartite institution of higher learning in Nigeria has continued to attract students from different walks of life and from all parts of the country. The Institute, with its blend of military, polytechnic and university programmes has four regulators namely Headquarters Nigerian Air Force, National Board for Technical Education, National Universities Commission and the National Civil Aviation Authority.
Bassey Okon PhD
Wing Commander
AFIT Director of Public Relations