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Nigerian interest in UK down while US, Canada rises, says pan-Africa search portal

StudySearch, a university application platform catering mostly to international students from Africa, has found that its enquiries from Nigerian students looking to go to university in the UK decreased by 65% between 2014 and 2015.

Photo: studysearch.co

Enquiries to the US and Canada combined have increased from 7,144 in 2014 to 9,787 last year

Meanwhile, enquiries to the US and Canada on the platform have risen by 30% in the same period and interest in other destinations, including China, is increasing.

Frederik Obasi, CEO of StudySearch, has attributed much of the decline in interest in the UK to unfavourable government policy.

“I think the government policies do have a large part to play in the decline we’re seeing”

“I think the government policies do have a large part to play in the decline we’re seeing,” he told The PIE News.

“The UK is probably one of the most expensive places to study in the world so I think economic factors and the government policies have the largest part to play.”

StudySearch received 30,000 enquiries from students around the world in 2015, with 79% coming from Nigeria.

A further 8% of enquiries came from other African nations, predominantly Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.

In 2014, 15,992 enquiries were made from Nigerian students to study in the UK, however this number dropped to 5,610 for the same period the next year.

The decline in StudySearch enquiries mirrors the drop in Nigerian students studying in the UK shown in recent HESA statistics.

First year Nigerian student enrolments fell by 8% between 2013/14 and 2014/15 and in the same period, the number of total enrolments in higher education providers also showed a 1% drop.

Meanwhile, enquiries on StudySearch for the US and Canada combined increased from 7,144 in 2014 to 9,787 last year.

Open Doors data shows that there was an almost 20% increase in the number of Nigerian students studying in the US between 2013/14 and 2014/15, bringing the number to 9,494.

Furthermore, data from CBIE shows that the number of Nigerian students in Canada was up 25% from 2013, reaching 8,620.

Obasi added that interest in other destinations including Malaysia, China, Dubai, Turkey and Cyprus is also on the rise.

“The business collaboration between Nigeria and China has really opened up people’s minds to China as a destination to study”

“The business collaboration between Nigeria and China has really opened up people’s minds to China as a destination to study,” he said, adding that there has been a growing presence of China in Nigeria in certain industries, particularly construction.

Overall, Obasi underlined the upward demand among Nigerian students to go abroad for university.

“We just need to look at the size of the expanding middle class and the amount of people who actually now can financially afford to actually send their kids abroad,” he said, adding that the country’s capacity limitations contribute to outbound mobility.

“There’s about 1.7 million students in Nigeria who apply to go to university and there’s only 500,000 spaces and so the demand is just far greater than the supply.”

Despite the recent announcement that the government will increase access to STEM education by offering free tuition, and fears that currency devaluations could impact buying power, Obasi is confident demand will continue to grow.

He added that the nature of the Nigerian market has also created ripe opportunities for pathway providers onshore.

“We’ve seen pathway programmes really gain a lot of traction within the Nigerian market,” he said.

“Parents will prefer for their child to do a pathway stay in Nigeria for an extra year or maybe even a year foundation and stay in Nigeria for an extra two years before actually travelling out.”

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