Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has dismissed growing concerns over the increasing migration of Nigerian students to foreign universities, insisting that the trend has reduced significantly under the current administration.
The minister made the clarification during an interview on Channels Television on Tuesday, where he argued that recent reforms and improvements in the country’s tertiary education system had restored confidence in Nigerian universities and reduced the rush for overseas education.
Alausa was reacting to a recent global report which ranked Nigeria as the third-largest source of international students worldwide in 2023, accounting for about five per cent of global outbound student mobility behind China and India.
According to the minister, the statistics being referenced were outdated and failed to reflect current realities within the nation’s education sector.
“That’s not Japa. And please, qualify your data. Thank God you told me it was 2023 figure,” the minister stated during the television interview.
He explained that the 2023 period coincided with major disruptions in the education sector, particularly prolonged academic instability, uncertainty in university calendars, and inadequate investment in higher institutions.
The minister noted that the situation had changed considerably since then, stressing that academic continuity had improved across federal tertiary institutions, thereby reducing the desperation among students seeking alternatives abroad.
“2023 was when we came in. There was no academic continuity. They had the kind of extensive investment you’ve made in a tertiary education that wasn’t there,” he said.
Alausa disclosed that the Ministry of Education had been monitoring outbound student movement through its educational support services department and had recorded what he described as a “precipitous drop” in the number of Nigerians travelling overseas for studies.
“We’ve seen precipitous drop in those number of student going out. Our tertiary institutions are better now. We have academic continuity, academic session continuity,” the minister added.
He cited the growing popularity of the Joint Universities Preliminary Examinations Board programme, popularly known as JUPEB, as evidence that more Nigerian students were now embracing local educational opportunities instead of seeking admission pathways abroad.
According to him, many students who previously travelled overseas to pursue A-Level equivalents now remain within Nigeria because local preparatory programmes have become more attractive and widely accepted.
The minister also pointed to increasing competition for admission into top Nigerian institutions, including the law programme at the University of Lagos, as proof that confidence in the country’s universities was gradually improving.
“Kids are staying there. The quality of education is significantly better. If you now compare the 2023 data with 2024 and 2025 and see the precipitous drop of Nigeria going out,” he said.
The minister’s remarks come amid ongoing national conversations surrounding the “Japa” phenomenon, which has seen thousands of Nigerians relocate abroad in search of better educational, economic, and professional opportunities over the past few years.
Although international agencies and education analysts continue to report high outbound mobility among Nigerian students, government officials maintain that ongoing reforms, infrastructural investments, and efforts to stabilise academic calendars are beginning to reverse the trend.
