(L-R) Mr Emeka Onwuka, MD/CEO, Diamond Bank Plc; Mr Gbenga Adefoya and Chief Segun Osoba, former CEO of Daily Times Nigerian Plc, at the first Diamond Bank award for excellence in financial reporting in Lagos.

NIGERIANS whose children are studying abroad would be remitting over N140 billion per annum as school fees to the United Kingdom following last week’s fees increase by more than 30 per cent across UK’s higher institutions.
This figure is more than a quarter of the nation’s entire budget for the education sector in 2008 and 2009. The federal government budgeted N210 billion for the education sector in 2008 and N249 billion in 2009. This brought the total budgetary allocation to the education sector in the two years under review to N459 billion. About 20,000 Nigerians are currently studying in UK universities. Fees for UK and European citizens were tripled.
Nigerian parents planning to send their wards to study in the UK would be made to part with between N3.3 million and N5 million as school fees under the new dispensation per student.
Both tuition and living expenses will amount to between N5.3 million and N7 million per student per annum. It means that those Nigerian parents, who have more than one student in UK, will have to double or triple their budgets in order to see their wards through tertiary education
Currently, foreigners including Nigerians studying for either undergraduate or any of the postgraduate research or taught programmes pay between £9,000 to £14,000 per annum depending on the programme and the class of university,.
But under the new regime of fees to commence in 2012, international students would have to pay between £13,000 and £20,000 depending on the programme and the class of university. Fees are higher in such schools as Oxford, Cambridge, and London School of Economics.
On average, international students spend £19, 000 (about N4.7 million) on tuition and living expenses per annum. Science students pay more. This amount far exceeds an average of £1,310 paid by home students and students from the European Union countries per annum.
In 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 sessions 20, 090 Nigerians were in UK universities, while 10,000 were admitted in the 2007/2008 session. In 2008/2009 academic year, 10,090 Nigerians were issued student visas to study in UK, according to the figures released by Jason Ivory, head of visa section of British High Commission in Abuja.
More Nigerians have in the last few years embraced foreign admission especially in UK schools because of the perennial crisis in Nigerian universities.
With the increase by the UK authorities, there are possibilities that the opportunities for higher education in countries like Ghana and South Africa may be embraced by more Nigerians as the crisis in the state universities in Nigeria have continued unabated.