Tunji Alausa, the minister for education, has stated that the number of Nigerian students travelling abroad for university education has dropped significantly due to improvements in the country’s tertiary education system.
Alausa spoke on Tuesday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.
Responding to data suggesting that Nigeria ranks among the top countries for outbound student mobility, the minister said the figures being referenced were outdated and no longer reflected current realities.
“That’s 2023 data,” he said.
“I can tell you there’s a sea change in that data now.”
According to him, the federal government has improved academic stability and increased investment in tertiary education since assuming office.
“There was no academic continuity then,” he said. “Now, we have academic session continuity. We’re investing so much.”
The minister said data available to the ministry through its education support services department showed a sharp decline in the number of students leaving Nigeria to study abroad.
“We’ve seen a precipitous drop in those numbers of students going out,” he said.
“Our tertiary institutions are better now.”
Alausa cited the growing popularity of local advanced education programmes such as the Joint Universities Preliminary Examinations Board (JUPEB), which he described as Nigeria’s equivalent of A-level programmes previously sought abroad.
“That way, Nigerians used to go to England to do A-levels. We’re now doing JUPEB here,” he said.
The minister added that many top institutions in the country were now oversubscribed.
“Go to the University of Lagos, it’s oversubscribed,” he said.
“Go to all our top universities, oversubscribed. Kids are staying in.”
Alausa also defended the federal government’s decision to suspend aspects of the Bilateral Education Scholarship Agreement (BESA) scheme.
According to him, the programme had been abused and no longer represented the best use of public funds.
“One of the first files they brought to my desk was that I should approve N650 million for 60 Nigerian kids to go to Morocco to study,” he said.
He criticised the nature of some of the courses funded under the scheme, including English studies in a French-speaking country.
“We had students going to study psychology, sociology, zoology, botany,” he said.
“That was not the way the Bilateral Education Agreement was designed.”
The minister explained that the programme was originally intended for specialised courses such as engineering, medicine and aeronautics.
Despite the reforms, Alausa said the government would still fulfil obligations to students already enrolled under the scholarship arrangement.
“Our commitment to the BESA was that we will meet the obligation,” he said.
According to him, the government had already paid N4 billion and would clear the remaining N4 billion within weeks.
“It’s our obligation to them, and we will pay,” he added.
