Overview

HISTORY OF DEPARTMENT OF DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL STATISTICS The Department of Demography and Social Statistics is one of the foundation Departments in the Federal University Birnin Kebbi, Nigeria. As a vital part of the University, the Department is the first full-fledged department for demographic training in the whole of Northern Nigeria. It is the first and only department of Demography and Social Statistics in the north of Nigeria. As one of the very distinct departments in the University, the Department offers a wide range of courses from which prospective students can choose to create a career of choice that is right. The Department has a full status on accreditation by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and in terms of staffing, presently there are 3 Professors, 2 Assoc. Professors, 2 Senior Lecturers, 1 Asst. Lecturer and 4 graduate assistants on-post. The Department was established during the 2014/2015 Academic Session with the mandate to provide sound, internationally competitive demographic training in the region and beyond. Through the singular effort of the foundation Vice Chancellor, Prof. Lawal S. Bilbis, the University entered into a collaborative agreement with the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, to assist the new Department to redesign its curriculum in demographic training, to which the Wits Demography and Population Studies Programme, in the spirit of the MOU, reviewed the existing curriculum and redesigned it to meet international standard. The department has demonstrated excellence in demographic training and successfully graduated several students in four different academic sessions between 2017/2018 and 2020/2021 academic sessions. Our graduates are also poised to contribute to critical development sectors such as data sourcing, demographic challenges facing the country, healthcare, migration, environmental crisis and digital analysis of data for planning purposes. The curriculum in use in this Department is very unique and different in terms of philosophy and scope from any undergraduate curriculum in demographic training in sub-Saharan Africa. This curriculum also strikes a balance between theoretical foundations and hands-on practical skills for global analysis of population and demographic characteristics for sustainable development. Thus, graduates of demography have enormous opportunities in a wide range of professional settings both public and private sectors.