The Federal Government is reviewing its foreign scholarship and bilateral education arrangements, with plans to reduce unnecessary overseas spending and redirect public resources towards strengthening Nigerian tertiary institutions.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the government could no longer justify spending scarce public funds to send students abroad to study programmes already available in Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
Alausa explained that the policy was aimed at building domestic capacity and ensuring better value for public spending.
He recalled that shortly after assuming office, he received a proposal involving about 100,000 Nigerian students travelling to Morocco to study English-taught courses, including mass communication and journalism.
The proposal raised concerns, he said, because the courses were already available in Nigeria and the students would have spent their first year learning French before beginning their academic programmes.
“Number one, we have all those courses in Nigeria. And yet, number two, they were going to spend the first year learning French before they started the programme,” Alausa said.
He argued that the cost of funding students abroad could not be justified when Nigerian tertiary institutions had developed significant capacity.
“And number three, in the position of a few million to support this in Nigeria, we support thousands of them,” he said.
According to the minister, the Federal Government concluded that continuing the Bilateral Education Agreement in its previous form would amount to an inefficient use of public resources.
“So the Bilateral Education Agreement was not making sense, again, to us in government. It was a way to waste government funds,” Alausa said.
He added, “And this President will not waste any public funds.”
The government had earlier discontinued new government-funded BEA scholarships while retaining support for students already enrolled under the previous arrangement.
Existing beneficiaries will continue to receive support until they complete their studies, while new government-funded awards under the arrangement have been discontinued following a review of the programme.
The policy, however, does not amount to a blanket ban on foreign scholarships for Nigerians.
Foreign governments can continue to sponsor Nigerian students, but the Federal Government said it would become more selective about committing Nigerian public funds to overseas education.
Alausa said countries willing to sponsor Nigerian students could continue to do so without necessarily requiring financial support from the Nigerian government.
He added that the circumstances that justified sending large numbers of Nigerian students abroad decades ago had changed.
“When those programmes were set up 20 years ago, they were meant to get students to go to the government colleges where we did not have capacity.
“But in the last 20 years, we’ve built a number of capacities in the tertiary institutions — universities, polytechnics and colleges,” he added.
The scholarship review is part of broader education reforms aimed at strengthening Nigeria’s tertiary institutions, expanding technical and vocational education, improving digital learning, promoting research and innovation, and making education more responsive to economic needs.
The Federal Government has also continued to strengthen domestic student support through scholarships, bursaries and the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.
Alausa said education spending must produce measurable results, particularly at a time of competing development needs and limited public resources.
The government’s focus, he said, is not simply to withdraw foreign scholarships but to ensure that public funds are directed towards areas where they can have the greatest impact.
“So we have to start with Nigerians,” the minister said.
Alausa also said the government wants to build a tertiary education system capable of producing the skills, research and innovation needed for national development.
He recently inaugurated the Tertiary Institution National Gallery Prize Committee to recognise outstanding academic research and innovation, particularly work with commercial and industrial potential.
“We want undergraduate researchers to see a clear pathway from academic research to industrial application, enterprise, innovation, and national development,” he said.
The minister said Nigeria could no longer measure the success of its education system solely by the number of certificates awarded.
“The most successful nations of the 21st century will not necessarily be those endowed with greater natural resources. They will be those that can systematically transform knowledge into solutions, research and intellectual capital into economic and industrial value,” Alausa said.
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