The main objective of the Department is to produce adult educators who have the mastery of Adult Education as a distinct field of study with a sound academic and professional training as contained in the National Policy on Education, namely

1. To provide functional literacy education for adults who never had the advantage of any formal education;
2. To provide functional and remedial education for those young people whom prematurely dropped out of the formal school system;
3. To provide further education for different categories of completers of the formal education system in order to improve their basic knowledge and skills:
4. To provide in-service on-the-job, vocational and professional training for different categories of workers and professionals in order to improve their skills;
5. To give the adult citizens of the country necessary aesthetic, cultural and civic education for public enlightenment.
6. To produce adult educators that can provide community based educational programmes and also teach within the formal setup of the educational system.

With the attainment of the above objectives, graduates of adult education will be able to fit into various fields of human endeavour both in the private and public sectors of the economy. They will be able to provide the much needed expertise to Colleges of Education which has been mandated by the National Commission of Colleges of Education to compulsorily include Adult Education in the curriculum of the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) across the country beginning from the academic year 2011.