The Federal Government has decried the growing trend of Nigerian students who fail to return home after benefiting from foreign scholarships, revealing that a staggering 85 per cent of such beneficiaries do not contribute to national development upon completion of their studies abroad.
The Minister of Education, Mr. Tunji Alausa, made this known on Friday during a one-day engagement with heads of institutions, bursars and procurement officers in Lagos.
He said the government was overhauling the funding architecture of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and foreign scholarship schemes to ensure better value for public resources.
“Our evidence-based analysis showed that 85 per cent of Nigerian students sent abroad on government scholarships never returned to contribute to national development,” Alausa lamented.
“Many of the programmes they studied could have been handled effectively within our own institutions.”
As part of efforts to curb this trend, Alausa announced that the government had established 28 Centres of Excellence across select public and private institutions to strengthen local postgraduate training, drive innovation, and boost employment opportunities.
“We are repositioning the funding framework to prioritise capacity building within the country,” he said.
“Nigeria must stop exporting brains and start investing in indigenous knowledge systems that serve our economy.”
The minister also disclosed a sweeping policy change in TETFund disbursements, declaring that tertiary institutions with fewer than 2,000 students would no longer be eligible for funding.
He cited inefficient allocation of resources to underpopulated institutions as unsustainable.
“Several polytechnics established as far back as 2019 have only between 350 and 550 students enrolled yet receive the same level of funding as institutions with over 18,000 students,” Alausa stated.
“This is inefficient. Institutions that fail to scale up capacity within five years of establishment will be excluded from TETFund support.”
He further criticised the proliferation of satellite campuses, describing the trend as “unsustainable and counterproductive.”
Also speaking at the event, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Mr. Sonny Echono, affirmed the agency’s shift toward a more performance-based funding model that favours transparency, accountability and institutional output.
“Institutional expansion must be checked, and we must avoid unnecessary duplication of mandates,” Echono warned.
“Institutions that fail to access, utilise or properly account for their funds risk being delisted from the TETFund beneficiary list.”
According to him, the new direction aligns with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s directive to ensure maximum value from every naira spent on higher education.
“This policy is not meant to punish but to safeguard the credibility and impact of TETFund interventions,” Echono said.
“We are encouraging Public-Private Partnerships in areas such as hostel development, innovation parks and service facilities.”
Echono concluded by calling for a renewed commitment to governance reforms across the tertiary education sector.
“This engagement is a call to action,” he said. “It is a platform to learn, reflect and commit to best practices in governance, project management and compliance.”
The reform drive comes amid widespread calls for a revamp of Nigeria’s education funding system, as stakeholders continue to raise concerns about capital flight and declining academic standards.
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