Umaru Musa Yar’Adua University, formerly Katsina State University, was established by the Katsina State Government in 2006, to "serve as a nucleus for socio-economic, technological and political development of the State by producing highly skilled human resource through conventional face-to-face and distance learning modes." Umaru Musa Yar'adua, then the executive governor of Katsina State and later the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, began the work of creating the university before his death in 2010. The law establishing the Katsina State University was passed by the Katsina State House of Assembly on 5 September 2006, and the University commenced academic activities in January 2007 with three faculties, and 16 undergraduate programmes. The State House of Assembly passed a law changing the name of the university to honor Umaru Musa Yar'adua on 8 April 2009. The first 25 years of the university's existence have been divided into four phases—three phases of 5 years each, followed by a 10-year phase. In each phase, the university will add faculties, departments, and academic programmes, until it has a total of 13 faculties, 76 departments and 236 academic programmes. The Visitor of the University is the serving governor of the state ; the Chancellor is Nigeria's one-time minister of Economic Development, Dr. Umaru Mutallab; and the current Vice Chancellor is Professor Idris Isah Funtua.
Among the pioneer faculties in the University, Faculty of Education has the highest number of applicants and graduates highest number of students every year. The faculty has link with almost all the faculties and departments in the university where its students are expected to belong to another department for their second course. Thus, students of education are found in courses offered in the university except departments like Business Administration, Sociology, Political Science, and Political Science. In the year 2016, the Faculty offered admission to six hundred and twelve students The Faculty is made of Departments of Education and that of Library and Information Science. The Department offers education courses for undergraduate students in addition to the courses they receive from their second departments such as Arabic, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English Language, Geography, Hausa, History, Islamic Studies, Mathematics, and Physics. The department also offers post graduate courses in Curriculum, Educational Administration, Sociology of Education, Psychology of Education and Philosophy of Education for Masters and Phd students. Since its inception, the Department of Education employed old timers in education drawn from colleges of education, polytechnics, and teachers with first and second degree working in secondary schools. Among its Heads of Department are Ma'aruf Nuhu Batagarawa, Mani Ahmad, Sunusi Mamman, C. C. Okam, Yahaya Aliyu Sa'idu Kankara, Talatu Ibrahim Umar.
