About 500 tertiary students will walk through Invercargill's central business district on Friday to celebrate their graduation from the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT).

The graduation procession has a 20 year tradition and Traffic Control Management will be on hand to make sure people get across the roads safely, , SIT acting academic operations manager Trish Lindsay said.

Ms Lindsay said she was not aware of any threats to the Invercargill graduation and she felt very sorry for the Dunedin students who were deprived of their celebrations yesterday.

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Otago University in Dunedin was advised by police yesterday not to proceed with its planned graduation ceremonies, following what was reported as a specific and detailed threat to the events.

The university is now reviewing its procedures for graduation events planned next week.

Two SIT graduation ceremonies for diploma, degree and post graduate tertiary students will be held at the Civic Theatre tomorrow from 12.15pm.

The first ceremony is for SIT2LRN Distance Learning graduates and Health, Humanities & Computing graduates from 12.15pm to 1.45pm.

The second ceremony for Trades & Technology graduates, Queenstown Campus graduates and New Media Arts & Business graduates will start at 2.15pm and run through to 3.30pm.

It is expected 275 graduates will be at the first ceremony and 240 at the second, with a total of 515 graduates crossing the stage.

This is a similar number to 2019, and up from 430 graduates five years ago in 2015. 

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The increase in numbers in recent years is due mainly to the increase in higher level programmes such as masters, postgraduate, graduate diploma and graduate certificate in a variety of programme areas, such as engineering, health science, information technology, agribusiness management, occupational health and safety, environmental management, and screen arts.

Acting chief executive Maree Howden said the graduation ceremonies were wonderful occasions for graduates to celebrate their achievements with families and friends.

SIT was thrilled to be holding the graduation ceremonies considering the disruptions to study this year because of Covid, and success was due to the dedication and commitment shown by staff and graduates, she said.

SIT was looking forward to hosting students' families from Southland and from around New Zealand.

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One disappointing aspect of the graduation this year was that, because of Covid, many international graduates would not have their families and friends in Invercargill to support them, compared to previous years when SIT welcomed large numbers of international families, Ms Howden said .

The procession will depart Esk St at 3.40pm and arrive at SIT’s main campus at 4.15pm, where it will be met with a staff guard of honour. Afternoon tea will follow.

The route begins beside the Invercargill City Council buildings, turns right into Kelvin St, then left into Don St. It heads through the SIT Arcade and returns to Esk St, then goes down Kelvin St to Tay St, before diagonally crossing the road and returning to Esk St and the SIT Campus.