Nigeria tops African countries with students in US varsities

Written by Kunle Awosiyan, Lagos Monday, 03 September 2012

NIGERIA leads countries with highest number of foreign students from Africa currently studying in American universities and colleges, an international student counsellor, Dr Mervyn Fishback, has said.
He said this at a seminar to recruit Nigerian candidates to the School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, South Baylo University, United States of America, at the weekend.
According to him, not less than 7,100 Nigerians were engaging in various academic programmes in US varsities and colleges, followed by Kenya with 4,000; Ghana 2,500 and Tanzania, over 2000 students.
Fishback, who had been in the profession of recruiting students for US varsities and colleges for over 34 years, said he was impressed by the population of Nigerians in the US schools and had visited the country to introduce new programmes, Masters of Science in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, to intending Nigerian candidates.
As part of plans to attract the students, Fishback said the university would give scholarship to five Nigerian candidates to study Acupuncture in the US, after which it would set up a medical outfit in Lagos to train more people in the oriental medicine.
The tuition fee for the three-year programme, according to Fishback, is $5,000 per year, describing it as one of the cheapest in the United States.
However, chairman of the Academic Staff Union of University of Lagos, Dr Karo Ogbinaka, has described the high population of Nigerians in foreign universities as pathetic for the country.
“It shows that parents prefer to enrol their children abroad because of the poor quality of education in Nigeria. It is negative.
Those who travel abroad to study are not enjoying free education over there. They have engaged in serious foreign exchange, which perhaps is not good for our economy. They have taken our money out of the country to develop US economy,” he lamented.
Ogbinaka, however, called for the expansion of the university system in the country, so as to attract foreign students and teachers, stressing that there was the need for university autonomy.
“The government must be stable with its policies, as there are too many contradictions in the policies at present,” he added.
Source Tribune NewsPaper