By Our Correspondent
National News – The Federal Government has announced plans to settle N8bn owed to Nigerian students affected by the suspended Bilateral Education Agreement scholarship scheme.
Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed this during an interview on Tuesday, stating that the government had already released N4bn, while the remaining N4bn would be approved within two weeks.
Alausa explained that the scholarship programme, originally created to support specialised overseas education in fields such as engineering, medicine and aeronautics, had been heavily abused over the years.
According to him, investigations revealed several questionable courses and cases of financial misuse under the scheme.
The minister said one of the first documents presented to him after assuming office requested approval of N650m for 60 students travelling to Morocco.
He noted that some beneficiaries were listed to study courses like psychology, sociology and English in a French-speaking country, which he described as unjustifiable.
He further revealed that some students benefiting from the foreign scholarship were also enrolled in Nigerian universities while receiving government sponsorship abroad.
The discovery, he said, forced the government to discontinue the programme.
The Bilateral Education Agreement scholarship scheme involved partnerships between Nigeria and countries including China, Russia, Algeria, Hungary, Morocco, Egypt and Serbia.
The initiative sponsored hundreds of students for higher education overseas, but the budget reportedly rose from N3.2bn in 2022 to N8bn in 2025.
The crisis surrounding the programme worsened between September 2023 and August 2024 when students reportedly received no payments.
Although funds were later released in September 2024, beneficiaries complained that allowances had been reduced by more than half, leading to unpaid tuition fees, hostel evictions and denial of access to school services.
The Federal Government officially cancelled the scheme in April 2025, affecting over 1,200 Nigerian students studying abroad.
