SUMMARY
Office Technology and Management (OTM) education is an integral part of business education programme in Nigeria. The course is expected to provide occupational skills for its recipients in business or office related occupations either as employees or selfemployed. The central attention of the paper is that when students who are considered future leaders are empowered, it subsequently leads to the social, economic and political growth and stability of any nation. In view of this, the study sought to assess Office Technology and Management students’ proficiency in the use of Microsoft application packages in Nigerian tertiary institutions with particular attention to Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was used for the study. The entire population for the study consisted 2018 OTM students who were 59 Higher National Diploma students from Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi. A structured questionnaire of 30 items was used for data collection after being validated by 3 experts with internal consistency coefficient value of.0.89. The data collected in response to the research questions were analysed using percentage while data regarding the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 levels of significant using t-test statistics. It was discovered that the OTM students were proficient in the use of Microsoft application packages and that there is no significant difference between the performances of the students, hence the gender variable was not pronounced in terms of performance. The study therefore concludes that Office Technology and Management is a dynamic career that goes along with the waves of modern changes and development. The study recommends among other things that OTM curriculum designers should keep themselves abreast of this requirement and effect changes whenever they occur in this age of technological breakthrough; moreover, the government and other stakeholders of the polytechnic should ensure that the institutions have a well-equipped computer laboratory with adequate numbers of functional computer system for teaching and learning in their department.