Nigerian students and their dependants in the United Kingdom have contributed an estimated £1.9bn to the economy of the UK in one year, according to an analysis by SBM Intelligence.
The data covered the 2021/2022 academic session.
In the data made available to our correspondent on Wednesday, it was estimated that a sum of £680,620,000 was reportedly paid as school fees with a total of £54.3m paid in taxes by working spouses of the students.
Further analysis of the data also revealed an estimated sum of £41.7m paid as health insurance; £408.37m was paid as rent while a total of £151.26m was paid as national insurance.
The PUNCH had earlier reported how foreign universities abroad profited from the gross underfunding of tertiary institutions in the country.
For instance, Nigerians spent $609.5m to acquire foreign education between January and August 2022. This was based on data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Nigerians have continued to troop in their numbers in pursuit of foreign academic qualifications; for many of them, it is a means of leaving the country.
Recent data released by the Home Office of the United Kingdom revealed that the number of study visas released to Nigerians increased by 222.8 per cent to 65,929 in June 2022 from 20,427 in the same period of 2021.
The PUNCH reports that education in Nigeria, especially in tertiary education, has been marred by industrial actions.
The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation observed that about 76,338 Nigerians were studying abroad as of 2018, the highest from an African country.
An education activist and Programme Director, Reform Education Nigeria, Ayodamola Oluwatoyin, who had spoken to our correspondent earlier, listed poor government policies as some of the reasons Nigerians seek better opportunities abroad.
