In the United Kingdom alone, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, HESA, no fewer than 44,195 Nigerians enrolled in universities in that country as at the end of the 2021/2022 session. With the then liberal policy of granting postgraduate students the opportunity of working and also going to the UK with their immediate family members, unofficial sources said the figure would have doubled by the end of the 2022/2023 session.
The impact of the development is seen in the high amount of foreign exchange spent on tuition and other fees in those countries by Nigerians.
According to a data from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, on Balance of Payment released last February regarding the first six months of the year 2023, $896.09 million was spent on foreign education, meaning close to $2 billion would have been committed to such payment by the end of that year.
Forex crisis
However, the bubble has since burst with downturn in Nigeria’s economy and some policies introduced by the Bola Tinubu administration mid-last year, which have made getting scarce foreign exchange to service such expenditures difficult. The development has led to sordid and heartbreaking tales emanating from Nigerian students abroad.
Average cost of tuition in the UK and Canada
In the UK, depending on the school and the location, tuition for foundation courses, that is Advanced Level courses is between £10,000 and £15,000; undergraduate courses (per year) is between £11,000 to £15,000; postgraduate courses (Full fees) £11,000 to £16,000; doctorate courses (per year) £14,000 to £16,000.
On average in Canada, university tuition costs around: $36,100 per year for international undergraduate students (Statistics Canada, 2022) $21,100 per year for international graduate students (Statistics Canada, 2022). Additionally, on average, Canadian university tuition fees are 27% more economical than tuition fees at US universities.
Impact of international students on UK varsities
To say foreign students are important to the survival of some UK varsities is a fact. The Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, Norwich, David Maguire, exemplified this in a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, aired recently. The university had 3,095 international students in 2021/22, but the figure dropped significantly because of restrictions on families of international students coming to the country.
“Our applications for international students are down 40%,” he told BBC Politics East.
“My number one concern is how do we deal with a potential downturn in international students fees and what can we do to either supplement our income or reduce our cost base to accommodate that.”
He said many universities were in “difficulty”.
“A recent report from the Office for Students clearly shows as many as 40% of all the universities in the country could be in serious financial difficulty within the next two to three years absent of any further funding of universities,” he said.
Economic crunch and pitiable tales from abroad
A Nigerian student at Newcastle University with stage five kidney disease faces deportation from the United Kingdom over failure to pay her accumulated doctorate degree fees. Sue Agazie, who was diagnosed in September 2023 has been asked to leave the UK by 20 July or make a new application to stay, BBC said in a report.
Agazie, however, said her inability to pay for high quality healthcare in Nigeria means being sent there is like a “death sentence”.
The university said “all international students are subject to strict Home Office rules” but it would not discuss individual cases.
Agazie, who is married with one kid, is one of two students who have made an official complaint over alleged promises made to convince the pair to study in the UK.
She said her supervisor promised her funding when she was recruited which did not come to realisation and therefore resulted in her being unable to pay her fees.
Describing her predicament, the woman said the past year has been “the most difficult of my life”.
She was diagnosed with stage five kidney disease in September 2023, meaning her kidneys are close to or have completely failed. She is on a waiting list for a kidney transplant.
“I have to check my blood pressure almost every two or three hours,” she said.
According to her, being sent back to Nigeria will rather aggravate her ordeal as she does not have the money to get high quality healthcare for her disease in Nigeria.
She has been told she, along with her six-year-old child and husband who came to the UK as her dependents, must leave the UK by 20 July as she has not paid her PhD fees.
Agazie said the university did not need to immediately report her to the Home Office as her inability to pay her fees is directly linked to her complaint. Only recently, some Nigerian students in Teesside University were ordered to leave the UK as a result of their inability to meet their financial obligations. They were blocked from their courses and reported to the Home Office for possible deportation.
A university spokesman said failure to pay was a breach of visa sponsorship requirements, and that it had “no choice” but to alert the Home Office. The Home Office said visa sponsorship decisions rested with the institution.
It is not only students on self sponsorship that are facing uphill task trying to stay afloat abroad, but those on Bilateral Education Agreement, BEA, too. Across Europe, Asia, North America and others, they are literally roasting because of the inability to pay them stipends on time.
As the host country covers tuition, Nigeria finances sustenance costs for transport, books, clothing, and medical insurance. The BEA project is overseen by the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB) at the ministry. A typical BEA scholarship from Nigeria entitles a beneficiary to $500 worth of supplementation allowance to augment whatever feeding, local transportation, equipment, and books the destination university offers.
The clothing allowance and health insurance are $250 and $200, respectively, per annum. The students, mostly from low-income families, have not received stipends for up to 11 months.
ASUU, NANS, NAPTAN react
Commenting on the development, the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, opined that it is an indictment of the education system in Nigeria. “One would not want to say those who have fallen victims deserve what they got, because there is need for cross-fertilisation of ideas. But the truth is that it is an indictment of our education system. If the system here is working like we have always demanded as a union, the number of people going out won’t be large.
“ Unfortunately, only few among the students concerned are from middle class families, because if one is a civil servant and he is not stealing public money, where would he get the means to send a child abroad to school? In the good old days, deserving people got scholarship to go abroad to study, but now the process has been hijacked by the rich and influential politicians and public officers.
“In 2023 alone, Nigerians spent over $600 million to pay fees in British varsities. How many foreign students are coming here to study like we used to have before? Government should pay attention to education here. Let us improve the situation here and have confidence in our system. Let us do away with inferiority complex,” he posited.
The Deputy National President of the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria, NAPTAN, Chief Adeolu Ogunbanjo, said, “ Let the children of our politicians and top public officers study here. That was what people like the late Chief Kayode Jakande did when he was the governor of Lagos State. That will help improve the system not that some people would exploit means of getting their children escape from the rot here.
“What we have on hand now is very unfortunate. Many students are stranded and living in deplorable conditions over there. They are stuck. The federal government should act very fast. I learned the British Prime Minister is expressing concern about the issue too,” he stated.
The National President of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Comrade Lucky Emonefe, said the association is not resting on the matter. “We have met the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, and he explained what the BEA is all about and the efforts being made to clear the backlog.
He also spoke on those who were not sponsored by the government. It is the Ministry of Finance that has the responsibility of pursuing the stipends for those on BEA. For private students, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has to double efforts at getting forex to the affected students, “ he noted.
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