The National University of Lesotho (NUL) will, for the first time, hold a virtual graduation ceremony on the 26th September, 2020 for the 45th Convocation for the Award of Certificates, Diplomas and Conferment of Degrees. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NUL will hold an online ceremony which will be transmitted in three ways: online streaming via social media channels (NUL FaceBook page, YouTube and NUL website), television and radio broadcast.

The ceremony will take form of two segments starting with formal speeches by the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Chairman of Council and a representative of graduands. To make the day more memorable to graduands, Deans of Faculties and Director of IEMS will read out names of all graduands and these will also be shared digitally. Normally, only the names of postgraduate students are read by the Deans. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, graduands will be expected to come collect their certificates in the week of 28th September, 2020 to 2nd October, 2020. A schedule for collection for collection of certificates will be shared.

The past few months have been a challenging experience for us all in the education sector particularly, the institutions of higher learning due to the coronavirus pandemic. Even though NUL managed to lower traffic congestion in the recent years by splitting the ceremony into two parts over two weekends, the number of graduands is still high and might compromise the COVID-19 protocols. With the virtual graduation, we are not going to have any movement of graduands on campus on graduation day since they will be graduating in the comfort of their homes.