Nigerian students and their dependants in the United Kingdom have contributed an estimated £1.9bn to the economy of the UK in one year, according to an analysis by SBM Intelligence.
The data covered the 2021/2022 academic session.
In the data made available to our correspondent on
Wednesday, it was estimated that a sum
of £680,620,000 was reportedly paid as school fees with a total of £54.3m paid
in taxes by working spouses of the students.
Further analysis of the data also revealed an estimated sum
of £41.7m paid as health insurance; £408.37m was paid as rent while a total of
£151.26m was paid as national insurance.
Foreign universities abroad profited from the gross
underfunding of tertiary institutions in the country.
For instance, Nigerians spent $609.5m to acquire foreign
education between January and August 2022. This was based on data obtained from
the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Nigerians have continued to troop in their numbers in pursuit
of foreign academic qualifications; for many of them, it is a means of leaving
the country.
Recent data released by the Home Office of the United
Kingdom revealed that the number of study visas released to Nigerians increased
by 222.8 per cent to 65,929 in June 2022 from 20,427 in the same period of
2021.
Education in Nigeria, especially in tertiary education, has
been marred by industrial actions.
The PUNCH reports that the United Nations Educational
Scientific and Cultural Organisation observed that about 76,338 Nigerians were
studying abroad as of 2018, the highest from an African country.
An education activist and Programme Director, Reform
Education Nigeria, Ayodamola Oluwatoyin, who had spoken to our correspondent
earlier, listed poor government policies as some of the reasons Nigerians seek
better opportunities abroad.
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