History of Polytechnic Institution in Niger State

One of the many ways the people Niger State of Nigeria get their students acquired technical education is by sending them to polytechnic. By this, the students are able to acquire technical skill to work in all the industries in the sate. The state has three number of the schools and they are controlled by both goverment and private organization.

It is a believe in Nigeria that Niger State is home to many powerful Nigerians, having produced substantial numbers of the country past head of state and many of the country powerful military personnel both in the past and this present time.

Having produce many powerful and influential personalities in Nigeria does not in any way help it education reputations.  According to a data published by Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, the state ranked 30th of 36 states including Abuja with the highest number of educated population.

Niger State was established in 1976 during the reign of the military regime of General Murtala Mohammed and General Olusegun Obasanjo.  A year after it creation, the state witnessed the establishment of it first western style polytechnic institution in 1977 when Federal Polytechnic, Bida was established.

Federal Polytechnic, Bida was founded as Federal College of Technology, Kano but when it was moved from Kano at the directive of the then Federal Military Government of Nigeria it's name was changed to Bida College of Technology. The school later took up the name with which it is presently called in 1979.

The creation of another polytechnic in Niger State was in 1990, when Niger State Polytechnic was formed as a result of the conversion of the then Zungeru College of Advanced Studies (ZCAS) at the directive of the Niger State Government, due to a changed in Nigeria education system.

In 1997 the Niger State Executive Council headed by Military Governor Samuel Oduoye approved  the State College of Administration and Business Studies to be merged with the polytechnic making it more bigger, and since then the school began operating two campuses: one in Bida which is College of Administration and the other campus in Zungeru, which is College of Technology.

At present there are three government approved polytechnics in Niger State.

The third one is a private institution by the name St. Mary Polytechnic, Suleja.  It is on record that this school is the first ever private higher institution of learning to be established in the state.

St. Mary Polytechnic is a National Board of Technical Education (NBTE) approved private institution in Kwamba. It was established in 2015 as a Christian faith based school, owned and managed by the Catholic Diocese of Suleja. Just like any other private polytechnics in Nigeria, the opportunity to create the institution was as a result of the passing of a bill which allowed private organizations to establish  private polytechnic in Nigeria.

The school comes into existence 25 years after the establishment of the second polytechnic in Niger State.

It is worthy to note here that, the three polytechnics in Niger State were created with a purpose and that is for the training of technically skill manpower for the ever growing engineering industries in the state and in Nigeria at a large. Despite this number there are still opportunities for more polytechnics to be established in the state taken into consideration the population and the landmass of they have. Niger state is the largest in Nigeria by landmass so there would be enough land  for every interested private organizations to build it own private polytechnic and the huge population of young people that could be attracted to their schools.