The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Alausa has said Nigeria must stop sending students abroad to study courses that are already offered in the country.
Alausa stressed the need to maximise the capacity of local tertiary institutions and ensure the effective use of public funds.
He stated this in Abuja on Wednesday while speaking on the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize, an initiative established by the Federal Ministry of Education to recognise and reward outstanding academic research, innovation and intellectual excellence across Nigeria’s tertiary education system.
Alausa said Nigeria had developed significant capacity in its universities, polytechnics and colleges of education over the past two decades, making it unnecessary to continue spending huge sums on overseas education for programmes that could be provided locally.
He said, “We have built enormous capacity in tertiary institutions universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. Today, we have the capacity to train our young people here in Nigeria.”
According to him, the continued practice of sending students abroad for programmes available in Nigerian institutions amounted to an inefficient use of resources that could instead be invested in strengthening the country’s education system.
“Yet, we continue to send students abroad to study programmes that can be successfully offered in our own institutions.”
He cited Nigerian students travelling to countries such as Morocco to study nursing, mass communication, journalism and psychology as examples of overseas educational expenditure that should be reconsidered.
“Some of them even have to spend additional time learning French before commencing their programmes,” he said.
Alausa questioned the rationale behind such expenditure when Nigerian institutions already possess the facilities, lecturers and other resources required to provide many of the programmes.
The minister stressed that the government was committed to ensuring that public funds were deployed responsibly and that existing capacity in the education sector was fully utilised.
Alausa further said the Fepoederal Government unveiled the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize to encourage scholarship, research and innovation among students and academics.
He said the prize would provide a structured national platform for identifying and rewarding exceptional academic research with potential for innovation, commercialisation, industrial application and national development.
According to him, an annual prize pool of approximately N365 million is envisaged for outstanding undergraduate dissertations, Master’s theses and Doctoral theses, alongside special prizes in fields including Engineering and Technology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences, Agriculture, Law and Teaching Innovation.
The minister added that the credibility of the National Laureate Prize would depend on the integrity of its selection process, promising that the exercise would be transparent, competitive and merit-driven.
“The process will therefore be transparent, competitive, merit-driven and insulated from political, institutional or personal influence. Excellence must be the determining factor,” he said.
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