The federal government has just announced that it is cancelling foreign training programmes for Nigerian scholars. The minister of education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this at a conference organised by the British Council in Abuja. He added that henceforth, university lecturers will be trained locally.
The minister explained the basis for this decision: “We have just decided to cancel foreign training for scholars. The money we are spending to train one scholar abroad could be used to train 20 people here. We will be training everybody here.
Similarly, the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has also announced the suspension of the foreign component of TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff (TSAS) Intervention, effective January 1, 2025.
It said the suspension is in response to the cost of training in foreign institutions and the high rate of abscondment among foreign scholars. As a newspaper, the reasons cited for the action seem germane and plausible.
Since the federal government adopted the twin policy of fuel subsidy removal and naira devaluation, every sector of national life has been adversely affected. Under the present financial circumstances, sourcing foreign currencies to pay for scholars abroad is quite expensive.
Expectedly, the pronouncement has since sparked intense debate. As noted earlier, on the surface, the policy appears to have some merits: saving funds and providing more infrastructure. However, a section of public opinion aver that the government did not need to ban foreign training to save funds and provide university infrastructure. According to that shade of opinion, getting priorities right and having prudent resource management should be the focus.
We believe that the blanket cancellation of foreign training programmes may deprive Nigerian scholars of opportunities to acquire specialised skills and knowledge that are not locally available. This could ultimately hinder the country’s development in critical areas, especially in science, information technology and engineering.
Discontinuing foreign training for scholars will not help the Nigerian cause, especially as the universities lack the basic infrastructure to match the international exposure such training provides.
The minister’s promise of aggressively providing infrastructure in the universities to scale up learning and exposure for the lecturers cannot be attained overnight.
We believe the government means well, but we are against the process and the haste with which it is being pursued. Beginning the implementation in January 2025 is hasty, in our view.
To address these fears, we recommend that the government review the policy and exempt courses where Nigeria has a deficit from the ban.
Instead of cancelling foreign training programmes altogether, the government can reduce the number of beneficiaries and introduce stringent measures to curb the observed breaches
Such measures include adopting merit-based selection, where only the most qualified scholars are selected for foreign training programmes.
If not already in place, the government can also introduce a bonding system so that the beneficiaries can sign a bond to return to Nigeria after their training. The bond should clearly spell out the punishment for violation, with the involvement of the government of the country of study.
The federal government should also establish or strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of scholars’ performance during and after their training.
We also urge the authorities to explore virtual training programmes that will allow scholars to access specialised knowledge and skills without needing to travel physically.
We are afraid that the government’s plan to use the resources saved from the ban to fund domestic training programmes may not be realised, given the system’s pervasive corruption. There is the risk that corrupt officials could divert, steal, or mismanage these funds.
It is important to point out that scholars’ training abroad is not a significant drain on public funds. The bureaucracy is. Instead of streamlining operations and structures, the government is creating more irrelevant offices and making curious appointments for political jobbers and hangers-on in the corridors of power.
Foreign tours for all manner of government officials are still common. The presidential directive restricting foreign tours is not obeyed because the leadership has not shown good example. These are the actual drains on national resources.
If the government implements this policy, the country’s lecturers may have limited opportunities to acquire specialised skills and knowledge that are unavailable in Nigeria. This could also lead to a brain drain, as scholars may seek alternative opportunities abroad.
There is an age-old aphorism that the university system anywhere is an international community where members interact and cross-fertilise ideas that ultimately enrich teaching and research. This policy may hurt it.
Similarly, we are concerned that if the ban is implemented, it can potentially worsen the quality of education and research in Nigerian institutions and limit collaboration and exchange programmes with international institutions.
Even worse, it will likely limit the chances of products of Nigerian universities who aspire to pursue graduate programmes abroad.