Fisayo Falodi, Success Nwogu, Jesusegun Alagbe, Enyioha Opara, Peter Dada, and Armstrong Bakam
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.
It was gathered that the students were forced to take the decision following the huge exchange rate which many parents could no longer afford.
Some of the students said they would prefer to return to the country to complete their studies, 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.
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 Admissions Officer of Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Mr. Adewale Ayewole, also said the institution would gladly receive any returnee student, stating, “If they have the right qualification, we will accept them. If the course the student wants to study is run in our school, we will accept them.”
Asked if the institution had been receiving requests from overseas students, Ayewole asked PUNCH to forward an email to the school’s registrar. However, the registrar had yet to respond to the request as of the time of publishing this story.
But an official of Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Kwara State, said the institution doesn’t accept foreign students.
He said, “If the concerned students have passports, they will be admitted as international students, but they cannot serve in the National Youth Service Corps scheme after the completion of their programmes. They have to go abroad for their Master’s before they can serve.
“However, if the students do not have passports, they have to write the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and be admitted like any other local student.”
Though it has been receiving transfer requests from Nigerians studying abroad, an official of Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, said the school does not accept such requests because of its “peculiar” curriculum.
Source: Punch
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