The United Kingdom’s new quest for teachers from selected countries including Nigeria is expected to have implications for the education sector of Africa’s most populous nation, which is home to the highest number of out-of-school children in the world.
Nigeria is grappling with the exodus of skilled workers, mostly in its health and tech sectors, to the UK, Canada and the United States, among others.
“The brain drain is already happening in the medical and tech space, and the same thing will happen in the education sector, which is currently struggling with insufficient skilled and competent teachers,” Ridwan Muhammed, chief executive officer at Astist Education Consulting, said.
He said public schools would feel the effects more than the private ones. “They (teachers in public schools) are the ones that will take the opportunity to leave the country because they are poorly paid.”
Ayodele Shittu, a senior lecturer at the Department of Economics at University of Lagos, said if care is not taken, the new development could lead to a total collapse of the education system since the country is already losing a lot of talent.
“Unfortunately, our government has failed to realise that this is a nation of young people. They need to be invested in for us to get them productive so that we can get the best out of them for the good of the economy,” he said.
Earlier in the month, the UK’s department of education listed Nigeria, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Singapore, South Africa, Ukraine and Zimbabwe as the countries that are now eligible to apply for its Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).
The QTS, a qualification awarded by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) which takes effect by February 2023, means that teachers from those countries can come and teach in the country.
A statement from the country’s immigration website said they selected the countries because their teachers already have a substantial presence in the UK as valued members of the teaching workforce.
“There is an established interest in teaching in England in these countries. And by the end of 2023, our intention is that teachers from every country in the world will be able to apply to the TRA for QTS using the new service,” it said.
Reacting to the development, Akintoye Hassan, chairman of Nigerian Union of Teachers, Lagos State chapter, said the UK’s decision wants to minimise cost and get cheap labour from Nigeria.
“It is not that Nigerians are not good; the atmosphere is simply hostile. And the British government recognises this and has listed our country among those whose services are needed in that sector,” he said.
“Unfortunately, what value do we place on teachers here? I see what the UK government wants to do as a business decision.”
Olamide Adeyeye, a Lagos-based human development researcher, said this development could open up opportunities by making teaching more lucrative and competitive.
“There will be emerging opportunities if organisations begin to invest in building quality teachers and having training programmes for teachers that help them to transition within Nigeria and outside,” he said.
Adeyeye said it creates an opportunity to strengthen the Nigerian college of education system which is a fundamental issue in the country.
Over the past three years, the UK has been pushing ahead with efforts to attract young and vibrant talent to its economy through flexible immigration systems and routes due to its withdrawal from Brexit.
Brexit created a lot of job vacancies at the middle and low levels in the economy. Some of the routes introduced so far are Graduate route, High Potential Individual visa, Global talent visa and Scale-up visa.
For Nigeria, its large, cheap labour and intelligent minds make the country an attractive destination for the UK, which is battling with an aging population and a large skills gap.
According to the British government data, the number of student visas issued to Nigerians surged to the highest in four years by 548.3 percent to 50,960 in September 2022 from 7,860 in the same period of 2019.
The number of Nigerians issued skilled work visas grew by 148.9 percent to 8,646 in September 2022 from 3,473 in 2019.
“The developed world’s new gold rush! Young, highly skilled Nigerian professionals who will gladly accept depressed post-COVID wages and will boost economies by refreshing their ageing workforce and paying taxes to support pensions and welfare obligations,” David Hundeyin, a Nigerian investigative journalist, tweeted via his handle recently.
Read also: Number of Nigerian nurses in UK up 25% in six months
In the health sector, the poor remuneration has seen health professionals leave the country in drones. According to the General Medical Council, the number of Nigerian registered doctors in the UK grew by 82 percent to 10,660 in 2022 from 5,856 in 2018.
For nurses, it rose by 1,404.5 percent in the six months to September to 1,670 from 111 in the same period of 2018, according to the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
“Two of the three pillars of every economy or Human Development Index (HDI), as our daddy usually calls them, are about to be GONE! 1st, HEALTH – our doctors, nurses etc., now, EDUCATION – our teachers! It’s an emergency! Who’ll teach our kids?” a Twitter user, @Spotlight_Abby, tweeted via her handle.
The poor remuneration in the education sector has worsened the standards of Nigerian schools. This has led to incessant strikes, especially in tertiary schools, affecting the academic performances of students and calendars, making foreign education a more viable and alternative option to them.
A recent report by Invictus Africa, an advocacy group, shows that the current (2022) budget allocation to education is 5.4 percent, that is N923.8 billion out of the N17.1 trillion overall budget.
“This 5.4 percent is the lowest percentage allocation to education by the Federal Government in the last 10 years,” it said.
It also added that the 5.4 percent is a 50 percent reduction from the 10.8 percent allocated to education in 2015, and a slight 0.3 percent increase from the 5.7 percent allocated in 2021.
The poor allocation has affected the country’s performance both in human capital development and innovation index.
According to the United Nations Development Programme, the country ranked 163rd out of 191 countries in human capital development, 114th out of 132 countries in innovation.
“Once you don’t develop your human capacity, you will not be able to utilise them effectively to turn them to what is productive,” said Ayodele Akinwunmi, senior relationship manager at Corporate Banking Group, FSDH Merchant Bank. “But if you develop human capacity, it will bring income generation, tax for the government and then employment generation.”
