The department of Local Government Studies was grafted into the present Kaduna Polytechnic in 1968. The Northern Regional Government established a Local Government training Centre in Zaria in 1965 to train Native Authority (NA) staff. This training centre was merged with the then Staff Development centre in 1968 which later became a college of Kaduna Polytechnic.

while the school itself is one of the four schools which make up the College of Administrative and Business Studies (CABS).

At present, the department runs three academic programmes of two-year Higher Diploma, a two-year Diploma and a one-year Pre-Diploma course with an aggregate of about six hundred (600) students.
The department has 12 academic and 3 non-academic staff.

The department runs very rich study programmes with very wide courses. The department aspires to continue to produce astute graduates who can efficiently man local government finances and administrative departments, suitably perform watchdog services as local government inspectors, internal auditors and personnel managers. To this end, the department aspires to mount Post-Graduate as well as specialized courses in Local government Studies so that it does not restrict itself to the production of generalists but diversify into turning out specialists for successful and efficient local government administration.

In addition, the department does not want its products to be only computer literate but to be so versed in the art of using information technology to minimise embezzlement, mismanagement and misappropriation of public funds.

Rightly or wrongly, people believe that lots of financial corruption occur at the grassroot level (i.e at the local government level). The department is therefore desirous of inculcating in its students the culture of high moral standards, of open financial accountability, transparency and probity.

The department has recorded a number of achievements which today stand as its pride. The department was the first in any Nigerian polytechnic, to mount a Higher Diploma in Local Government Studies in 1979. It is also the only local government personnel trainer that teaches both Financial Management and Local Government Accounting and Auditing.

For many years, the department trained personnel for local governments in The Gambia. Employers of the trainees adjudged the graduands as the most appropriate to handle local government financial and personnel administration to the extent of specifically indicating Kaduna Polytechnic Diploma in their local government for admission into their Post-Graduate Diploma.

The department was the first institution to organize a national conference for local government chairmen and supervisory councillors which took place in 1977. The conference recorded 650 participants. Several seminars, workshops and conferences have been held for several states of Nigeria thereafter.

Lecturers in the department have at various points, been utilized as resource persons in research, workshop and induction programmes to both elected and non-elected officers of local governments. In particular, the department took part in the Review of Financial Memoranda for local governments in the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1990/91 in Lagos.

RESEARCH
In 1997, the United Nations Development Programme assigned the department to carry out a capacity assessment of human and institutional resources for planning and management at the local government level in six states of Nigeria namely: Benue, Niger, Plateau, Kogi, Kwara and Nassarawa states including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The research was successfully done to the great admiration of UNDP.

CABS - College of Administrative and Business Studies

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