Education Minister Tunji Alausa said 85% of Nigerian scholarship students abroad don’t return to help national development. He added that schools with fewer than 2,000 students may lose TETFund funding to boost efficiency and local capacity.
PUNCH
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has expressed concern that “85 per cent of Nigerian students sent abroad on government scholarships never returned to contribute to national development.” Speaking in Lagos, he announced a policy shift toward building local capacity through 28 Centres of Excellence, noting that “many of the programmes they studied could have been handled effectively within our own institutions.”
On funding, Alausa said, “Several polytechnics established as far back as 2019 have only between 350 to 550 students enrolled yet receive the same level of funding as institutions with over 18,000 students. This is inefficient and unsustainable.”
He added that “any institution that, after five years of operation, still has fewer than 2,000 students may be deemed ineligible for TETFund support.”
TETFund Executive Secretary Sonny Echono warned underperforming institutions risk being delisted, emphasizing, “This policy is not meant to punish but to safeguard the credibility and impact of TETFund interventions.”