Many Nigerian students studying abroad have been seeking transfer to Nigerian universities to complete their education at home because of the scarcity of foreign exchange.
According to Punch, the students were forced to take the decision following the huge exchange rate which many parents could no longer afford.
Some of the students told Punch that they would prefer to return to the country to complete theirstudies, instead of going through difficulties and long waits for forex that is no longer available to them at the appropriate time. An Ogun State indigene, Babatunde Agboola, who is studying in the United States, told one of our correspondents that he and some of his friends had agreed to return to Nigeria to complete their studies.
“The message we keep on receiving from home every day is that dollar is scarce and this is affecting our education,” Agboola said.
Asked which way the scarcity of the dollar was affecting them, he simply said, “In all areas. We need to buy food and sometimes books,but when there is no money to buy them, automatically we will be affected.So, it is better we return to Nigeria to
complete our studies.”
A large number of Nigerian students are studying abroad, mainly in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, among others.
International Educational Exchange Report
A 2015 report by the Institute of
International Education’s Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, the United States, claimed that 9,494 students from Nigeria were admitted in the 2014/15 academic session, making
Nigeria the leading source of students from Africa and the 15th largest country worldwide among international students in the US.
Nigerian universities, especially the private ones, have however, expressed interest in providing spaces for willing students interested in their respective institutions.
The universities assured the concerned students of standard learning facilities like those found in tertiary institutions abroad.
For instance, Babcock University said it was interested in accepting transfer students.It allayed the fears of concerned parents who could not afford expensive forex and urged them to seek placements for their children in the institution. The university also promised interested
students world-class learning facilities.
It listed integration of international
professional certifications into academic programmes and well structured and uninterrupted academic programmes, among others, as some of the benefits
interested students were bound to enjoy. A senior official of Babcock University told one of our correspondents on the telephonethat many foreign students had been seeking transfer to the institution.
He said the opportunity was open to
Nigerians who actually left the country to school abroad and those who were born there. The official said:
“It is surprising that many parents said their children would not have completed their education abroad, but for the opportunity created by Babcock University to assist stranded students. So many people have been coming to us to seek advice on how to handle their transfer. All they need to do is to apply and come with their transcripts. The opportunity is open
to every interested person, including
Nigerians born abroad,but interested in continuing their education in Nigeria.”
Worse For Final Year Students
Meanwhile, some parents whose children are schooling abroad have said that their final year students have been engaging in menial jobs, among other means, to sustain themselves.
A parent, Mrs. Abigail Ademuyiwa, whose son is studying in the University of Kyiv, Ukraine, stated that her son was in the final year, but had been seeking scholarship to complete his education following her inability to send money to
him.
She said “ Since last year that the foreign exchange has affected the naira, the money I have beensending to him is no longer enough to take care of him, but he told me that he had been seeking scholarship there
to complete his education, apart from engaging in menial jobs to cater for himself.He will graduate this year .”
A man, Alhaji Ahmed Sani, said he would have loved to bring his 21-year-old son from Ghana to complete his education at home, but he was constrained because he was in his final year.
Sani said, “ The tuition I paid in his first two years was not up to what I paid after the forex crisis. Before, I used to pay N200, 000per session, but I now pay N400, 000. If not because he is in his final year, I would have loved to bring him back to complete his education at home.”
He, however, told one of correspondents that two of his friends whose children still had more than two academic sessions to
complete their studies have sought
placements for them in Nigerian
universities.
0 comments:
Post a Comment