THE Central Bank of Nigeria has released $3.5bn on foreign education in the past seven years (June 2015 to August 2022).
According to a CBN data, a total of $269.1 million was released in 2016.
There was a huge leap in 2017 when the apex bank disclosed that a total of $514.16 was released for foreign education.
In 2018, a total of $546.78 was released.
For 2019, there was a huge decrease as the bank released $197.52 million.
It was also noted that $270.42 million was released in 2020 amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
There was a huge leap in 2021 as the bank recorded a total of $720.05 million released for same purpose.
So far in 2022, only the data from January to August has been made available which revealed that a total of $609.5 million has been released so far.
The data from the apex bank revealed that Nigerians remitted more than $3.5 billion to foreign academic institutions under Buhari without significant reciprocity in the form of inflows from foreign sources to the local education sector.
The huge net dollar outflows have dual adverse effects of underinvestment in domestic education and creates pressure on the naira exchange rate, economists said.
The high demand for dollars to pay foreign educational institutions affects Nigeria’s foreign reserves and contributes immensely to piling pressure on the exchange rate.
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