The Minister of Education, Dr Olatunji Alausa, has described the Federal Government-funded component of the Bilateral Education Agreement scholarship scheme as an unjustifiable use of public resources, arguing that Nigeria now has sufficient tertiary institutions to offer many of the programmes for which students are being sponsored abroad.
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Alausa spoke in Abuja while fielding questions at the unveiling of the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize, where he said the Federal Government was reviewing existing international scholarship arrangements to ensure that scarce public funds were directed to programmes capable of delivering greater value to Nigerians.
According to the minister, some of the bilateral scholarship arrangements were introduced decades ago when Nigeria lacked adequate capacity in certain specialised academic fields.
He said that situation had changed significantly following the expansion of universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and other tertiary institutions across the country.
Alausa argued that rather than spending huge sums sponsoring a relatively small number of students abroad for programmes already available locally, government could achieve greater impact by investing the same resources in Nigerian institutions and supporting a much larger number of students.
He cited a proposal presented to him shortly after he assumed office involving about 150 Nigerian students who were to be sponsored to study in Morocco at an estimated cost of ₦650 million for one year.
The minister said the proposal immediately raised concerns because some of the courses the students were expected to study were already available in Nigerian institutions.
He also questioned the logic of sending Nigerian students to French-speaking countries to study programmes such as English, journalism and psychology.
“We have built enormous capacities in our tertiary institutions, universities and colleges. Now we are asking where we are sending students,” Alausa said.
“We are sending students to Algeria, which is a French-speaking country, to study English. We are sending students to Morocco, a French-speaking country, to study journalism and psychology.”
Alausa said another concern was that the students would first spend an additional year learning French before beginning their substantive academic programmes.
He argued that the arrangement became even more difficult to justify when weighed against the number of students who could be supported locally with the same amount of money.
“I felt this was not morally right. Number one, we have all those courses in Nigeria. Number two, they were going to spend the first year learning French before they started the programme. And number three, if we put ₦650 million to support students in Nigeria, it will support thousands of them,” he said.
The minister said the government therefore concluded that the arrangement, in its existing form, was not delivering sufficient value for public expenditure.
“So, the bilateral agreement was not making sense to us as a government. It was a way to waste government funds. And this President will not waste any funds, any public funds,” Alausa said.
He, however, clarified that the Federal Government was not opposed to international scholarships generally.
According to him, countries that wish to continue offering scholarships to Nigerian students at their own expense would remain free to do so.
He stressed that the government’s concern was specifically with committing Nigerian public funds to foreign scholarship programmes where the academic courses involved could be pursued locally and where the expenditure did not appear proportionate to the benefits.
Alausa said the review was part of the Tinubu administration’s broader approach to public spending, which he said was focused on ensuring that government resources produced measurable outcomes and contributed to sustainable national development.
The minister maintained that Nigeria’s tertiary education system had developed sufficient capacity in many disciplines that previously justified foreign sponsorship, and that future scholarship decisions should reflect the country’s present realities rather than arrangements created decades ago.
His comments signal a possible shift in the Federal Government’s approach to the BEA scholarship scheme, with greater scrutiny likely to be placed on programmes that require direct funding from Nigeria where equivalent courses and training opportunities are already available in the country.
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