Fidei polytechnic Gboko,
benue state
Fidei polytechnic Gboko,
benue state
In a bold attempt to fully tap the potentials of the private sector in the area of education, the Education (National Minimum Standards and Establishment of Institutions) Decree NO. 16 of 1985 was amended on the 1st of January, 1993. The Amended Section of the Decree stipulates as follows:
An institution of Higher Education may be sponsored or owned by the government of the Federation, or of a State or by a Local Government or by any of the following: (a) A company incorporated in Nigeria; and (b) An individual or association of individuals who are citizens of Nigeria, and who satisfy the criteria set in the schedule of this Act of Establishment of Institutions.
Following this Amendment, the guidelines for the establishment of Private Polytechnics, Monotechnics and other similar tertiary institutions were drafted to give directions to all prospective proprietors of Private Polytechnics, Monotechnics and Colleges of Technology with the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) as the statutory body set by the Federal Government to control and regulate their activities. With this deliberate policy of the government, the Late Very Revd. Fr. Dr. Chris I. Utôv seized the initiative to establish Fidei Polytechnic, Gboko, the first privately-owned Polytechnic in the northern geo-political area of Nigeria. His vision, first, was to complement the effort of the government in the area of education of the citizenry, and second, to provide succour to the cries of thousands of Benue indigenes, who felt victimised by the admission policies of other tertiary institutions in the country, by finding it difficult to gain admission into the only existing polytechnic in the state, the Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo, because of the limited admission quota.
After satisfying all the statutory requirements, Fidei Polytechnic, Gboko, was issued an official approval to operate as a private polytechnic by the Benue State Ministry of Education (BSME), Makurdi, in September, 2001. The Polytechnic formally received the approval of the Federal Ministry of Education (FMOE), and was granted the official license to operate through the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), as the first private polytechnic in the whole Northern part of Nigeria, on the 7th April, 2007. From a very modest beginning with only two approved programmes for take-off in 2007, the Polytechnic, which had been described by the NBTE visitation team for accreditation of programmes in 2017 as the ‘fastest growing private Polytechnic in Nigeria’, at present, has three schools. These are School of Engineering Technology (SET), School of Environmental Studies (SES) and School of Management & Business Studies (SMBS) with 27 of its academic programmes both at the National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) accredited by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), Kaduna.