However, the ratio of males to females in the admission shows that only 412 of the 1,539 newly admitted students are females, indicating a very low enrolment of women for higher education into the University from Gombe and its neighbouring State.
Addressing the new students, Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Alhassan Mohammed Gani said the school as compared with its contemporaries, has achieved a lot in terms of academic excellence.
He said many of its staff had enjoyed and are still enjoying study fellowships both at home and abroad and explained that “This has put the University far ahead of its contemporaries”.
He said, only last year (2017), 12 new academic programmes were presented to the National Universities Commission in May 2017, an impressive outing of 10 programmes were accredited while the other two secured interim positions.
According to him, the school which started with two faculties at inception now has four while pioneer students of 250 in 2012 has now grown to nearly 5,000. “We started with 13 degree programmes in eight departments but now have 38 degree programmes in 19 departments.
He said the feat was achieved as a result of the institution’s preparedness to provide the much needed infrastructure, high ranking staff profile and facilities to support teaching and learning.
He appealed to the Federal Government not to relent in its efforts of revamping and improving the education landscape by increasing its budgetary allocation to enable the institution meets its targets.