The Federal Government is reviewing its foreign scholarship and Bilateral Education Agreement arrangements as part of efforts to reduce unnecessary expenditure and redirect public resources towards strengthening tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

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 already available in Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

Alausa disclosed this while explaining the rationale behind the review of overseas scholarship arrangements, stressing that the policy was aimed at building domestic capacity and ensuring 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 concerns because the courses were already available in Nigeria, while the students would have to spend their first year learning French before commencing their programmes.

“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,” Alausa said.

He said the cost of supporting such students abroad could not be justified when Nigeria had developed considerable capacity in its tertiary institutions.

“And number three, in the position of a few million to support this in Nigeria, we support thousands of them,” he added.

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 government has clarified that existing beneficiaries will continue to receive support until they complete their studies, while new government-funded awards under the arrangement have been discontinued following the review.

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 without necessarily requiring financial support from the Nigerian government.

Alausa 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 said.

The scholarship review forms part of broader reforms by the Federal Ministry of Education aimed at repositioning Nigeria’s education system under President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

The reforms include strengthening tertiary institutions, expanding technical and vocational education, improving digital education, promoting research and innovation, and making education more responsive to the needs of the economy.

The government has also intensified efforts to strengthen technical and vocational education and training by modernising curricula, developing industry-relevant skills and improving institutional capacity.

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.

“So we have to start with Nigerians,” the minister said.

The Federal Government is also strengthening domestic student support mechanisms, including scholarships and bursaries and the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, which provides financial support to students in tertiary institutions.

Alausa said the 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 added that Nigeria could no longer 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.