At the end of the civil war in 1970, the Rivers State Government was faced with anacute shortage of trained teachers for its rapidly expanding programme of post-primary education. In view of this, a committee was appointed by the Ministry of Education to examine the problem and to make necessary recommendations on the establishment of an Advanced Teacher Training College.
The report of the committee stressed the need to invest much energy in the right directions to ensure that the schools in Rivers State did not face the danger of either collapsing or producing students who would be worth nothing on their graduation. After the required spade work by the Ministry of Education, Rivers State College of Education opened in temporary quarters at the Catholic Mission’s Stella Maris College, Port Harcourt on 14th June, 1971 with an initial intake of 116 students, under the headship of Dr. William Maxwell Jnr., a USAID representative then serving in the State.