The Federal Government is reviewing its foreign scholarship and bilateral education arrangements as part of efforts to eliminate unnecessary expenditure and redirect public resources towards strengthening Nigerian tertiary institutions.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the government could no longer justify spending scarce public funds to send students abroad to study programmes that are already available in Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
The minister disclosed this while explaining the rationale behind the Federal Government’s decision to review its overseas scholarship arrangements, stressing that the policy was driven by the need to build domestic capacity and ensure better value for public expenditure.
He recalled that shortly after assuming office, he was presented with a proposal involving about 100,000 Nigerian students travelling to Morocco to study courses taught in English, including mass communication and journalism.
According to him, the proposal raised serious concerns because the courses were already available in Nigeria, while the students would have had to spend their first year learning French before commencing their programmes.
Alausa said, “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.”
He added that the cost of supporting such students abroad could not be justified when Nigeria had developed considerable capacity in its tertiary institutions over the years.
“And number three, in the position of a few million to support this in Nigeria, we support thousands of them,” he said.
The minister said the government therefore concluded that continuing the arrangement 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 latest position builds on the Federal Government’s earlier decision to discontinue government-funded BEA scholarships while retaining support for students already enrolled under the previous arrangements.
The Federal Government has clarified that existing beneficiaries of the bilateral scholarship programme would not be abandoned and would continue to receive support until the completion of their studies, while new government-funded awards under the arrangement were discontinued following a review of the programme.
The policy does not amount to a blanket ban on Nigerians receiving scholarships from foreign governments.
Foreign governments willing to sponsor Nigerian students can continue to offer such opportunities, but the Federal Government intends to be more selective about committing Nigerian public funds to overseas education.
Alausa similarly explained that foreign countries willing to continue sponsoring Nigerian students could do so without necessarily requiring financial support from the Nigerian government.
The minister said the circumstances that justified sending large numbers of Nigerian students abroad decades ago had changed considerably.
“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 comes amid broader reforms by the Federal Ministry of Education aimed at repositioning Nigeria’s education system under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
The reforms have focused increasingly on strengthening domestic tertiary institutions, expanding technical and vocational education and training, improving digital education, promoting research and innovation, and making education more responsive to the needs of the economy.
The Federal Government has also intensified efforts to strengthen technical and vocational education and training, with emphasis on modernising curricula, developing industry-relevant skills and improving the capacity of institutions to produce graduates who can contribute directly to economic development.
Alausa has repeatedly argued that education spending must produce measurable outcomes, particularly given the country’s competing development needs and limited public resources.
The push to retain more education spending within Nigeria also reflects the government’s broader objective of strengthening local institutions rather than relying excessively on overseas opportunities.
Alausa said the government’s approach was not simply about withdrawing foreign scholarships but ensuring that public resources were deployed where they would have the greatest impact.
He cited an instance involving scholarship beneficiaries who were expected to study abroad but were instead studying in Nigerian universities, saying such situations further demonstrated the need to review the system.
“So we have to start with Nigerians,” the minister said.
The Federal Government has simultaneously been strengthening domestic student support mechanisms, including scholarships and bursaries for Nigerian students and the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, which provides financial support to students in tertiary institutions.
Alausa said the government’s broader objective was to create a tertiary education system capable of producing the skills, research and innovations required for national development.
He recently inaugurated the Tertiary Institution National Gallery Prize Committee to recognise outstanding academic research and innovation, particularly research with potential for commercialisation and industrial application.
“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 afford to measure the success of its education system simply 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.
