The School of Postgraduate Studies was created in 1991 with the appointment of Dr. E.B. Alo (now Professor) as the founding Dean. His main responsibility was to liaise with the various departments and assess the possibility of some of them starting postgraduate training. The identified departments then were Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Geography and Technology Education. In 1995 a nine member University Postgraduate Committee was set up under Professor J.C. Ododo, the second Dean as Chairman to articulate and produce the Regulation/Guidelines for running the courses. This was accomplished and approved by the Senate on January 16, 1997.

The first programme, Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) was mounted in 1994 after a request was made by the Federal College of Education (FCE) Yola to the University administration to train its staff. Two distinguished Professors, F.C. Carew and S.O. Adewole from the University of Maiduguri and Jos respectively, standardized the courses curricula of which were drawn by the Technology Education Department. The programme was mounted in 1993/94 session with the initial intake of 28 students, seven academic staff comprising the two visiting Professors (above) and some Senior Lecturers from both FUTY and FCE, Yola

The programme was initially housed under the School of Postgraduate Studies until 8/9/98 when it was transferred to the Department of Technology Education with Dr.(Mrs) R.E. Uyanga as the Coordinator. Twenty-four (24) students who registered for the PGDE programme commenced studies in October, 1998 and graduated. The 1st graduation ceremony of the Postgraduate School took place on Saturday, 13th April, 2002.

By 1997 only 3 postgraduate programmes were considered at the School Board of Postgraduate Studies. These were M.Sc Rural Development (RD) and Environmental Resources Management (ERM) in Geography Department and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in General Studies Department. By 1997/98 session, Senate had approved 32 postgraduate programmes for various departments that submitted their programmes for consideration by the Board of the School of Postgraduate Studies. In the same year 14 out of the 32 Senate approved programmes started with a total number of 79 students.

In 1999/2000 session, 26 functional Senate approved postgraduate programmes were in existence with 198 students. By October, 2001 there were 45 programmes, 400 students. As at the date of this write-up, the total number of Senate approved academic PG programmes are 64 and all are functional.

Thus from a modest start, Postgraduate work at FUTY has recorded a phenomenal growth in terms of students enrolment (now approximately 1200), staff and number of academic programmes.