According to official data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), the number of Nigerian students studying in the United Kingdom (UK) rose to a record high of 44,195 in the 2021/2022 academic year. This represents an increase of 107.4% from the previous year.
With Nigeria ranking third behind China and India in the top ten international students list, experts attribute this growing trend to the UK’s intellectual capacity and its need for affordable labor to grow its economy.
Jennifer Oyelade, director at Transquisite Consulting, noted that UK universities get funding based on the performance of their students, which means that the more Nigerian students come and excel, the more money the universities receive.
Meanwhile, Adewale Adetona, co-founder at Menopays, argued that the UK sees attracting global talent as a significant way to further develop its economy.
The UK has become a global talent magnet by being a top study choice for Nigerian students. When compared to other countries, an analysis of Nigerian student enrollment data shows that the UK has a higher number of Nigerian students than the US, Canada, and Australia combined.
The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union in 2020 created a lot of job vacancies at the middle and low levels of the economy, leading the country to focus its attention on other countries with large youth demographics, including India, Brazil, and Nigeria.
To attract these countries, the UK updated its International Education Strategy in 2021, which aims to increase the value of its education exports to £35 billion ($48 billion) and host at least 600,000 international students annually by 2030.
The strategy includes the Graduate route, which allows eligible students to stay in the UK to work or look for work for up to two years (three years if studying at the PhD level) after completing a degree in the UK. Other strategies include high potential individual visas, global talent visas, and scale-up visas.
Despite the slow growth in international student numbers in the past due to migration restrictive policies, the British government’s updated education strategy has resulted in achieving the minimum 600,000 target in 2021, as the total number of international students reached 605,130 and 679,970 in 2021 and 2022, respectively.