• Knocks FG over neglect of education system

• Says years of agitation for improved sector vindicated

The fate of over 16,000 Nigerian students in the United States is currently hanging in the balance as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) moves to deport foreign students whose schools will switch to online classes due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The development, however, has drawn the ire of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which blamed the Federal Government for neglecting Nigeria’s educational system.

The Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP), which is run by ICE, in a new rule released on Monday, had said foreign nationals enrolled in U.S. educational institutions will have to transfer to in-person schools or take online classes outside the country. Otherwise, they will be deported. Also, the Department of State will no longer issue visas to students to attend schools that offer online classes only.

The statement reads in part: “The U.S. Department of State no longer issues visas to students enrolled in schools or programmes that are fully online for the fall semester nor will U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit such students to enter the United States.


“Active students who are currently in the United States and enrolled in such programmes must leave the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status. If not, they will have to face immigration consequences.”

But in a telephone interview with The Guardian, ASUU President Prof. Abiodun Ogunyemi recalled with regret “a time foreign students were coming to Nigerian universities. Students were coming from South Africa, Egypt and Ghana.”

According to him, “Today, the reverse is the case. In Ghana, more than half of the foreign students there are Nigerians. So, we can see that they are just harvesting our resources to fund their tertiary education. Why should Nigerians be going to the Republic of Benin, Cameroon, Togo, and Sudan to seek university education, not to talk of U.S.?”

ASUU’s incessant strikes are in the interest of students and their parents, he insisted, stressing that all the union is saying is: “Fix our laboratories, stock our libraries, renovate our workshops, supply facilities for e-learning and provide structures. Are those not the things they are enjoying there?”

The ASUU President said further: “Of course, the ruling class that can afford it are those sending their children to those distant places in America and Europe. The children of the poor are left to attend universities that are without facilities, universities that are not adequately staffed, and universities whose capacity for research have been dwindling. We think this is an opportunity for the Federal Government to sit back and address the problems in our university education and indeed Nigerian education as a whole.”


Also, former Minister of Education Prof. Chinwe Obaji wondered how courses like engineering and sciences that require practicals would be taught online. He called on government to make the universities attractive to Nigerian students abroad by tackling its many challenges, adding that COVID-19 is a temporary setback, which all nations would surmount in due course.

On his part, Prof. Ayodeji Olukoju, former Vice Chancellor at Caleb University, Imota, said: “The truth is that this situation is peculiar. It is unprecedented. It is not sustainable. In due course, we will conquer it. We once conquered the pandemic in 1819, Ebola, and we will surely conquer COVID-19. Nothing is permanent. It is true that online teaching would always continue but it can never take away the issues of face-to face interaction. For example, those students studying engineering in American universities and lab-based sciences, would they do all those things from a distance?”

He added: “We should adjust our curriculum to reflect the reality, mainly that we have to depend more and more, now, on online teaching. Secondly, we need to provide more infrastructure of online learning, ICT infrastructure essentially.

“Thirdly, we have to train people who can manage the infrastructure and those who want to teach on the platform because you can’t teach on the platform the way you teach in conventional classrooms. This is not a permanent situation but the world has to adapt to it.”

Most U.S. colleges and universities have not yet announced their plans for the fall semester but a number of schools are looking at a hybrid model of in-person and online instruction while some, including Harvard University, have said all classes will be conducted online.

Nigeria currently has the highest number of students from Africa studying in the U.S. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Nigeria had 16,039 students as at 2019.

The agency said: “There are over 36,000 students from Sub-Saharan Africa studying in the U.S. As of March 2019, there were 16,039 students from Nigeria studying in the United States with 54 per cent male and 46 per cent female.

“This is an increase of 3,342 students over 12,693 students recorded in November 2018. Undergraduate students constituted 34 per cent; Masters students 36 per cent; doctorate formed 12 per cent; while associate was 12 per cent. Non-degree and others formed five per cent.”

According to the agency, the top five states for Nigerian students in the U.S. include Texas with 2,713; California, 856 students; Maryland, 827 students; New York, 818 students; and Florida, 753 students.


Also, the over 16,000 Nigerians currently studying in the U.S. contributed $514 million to the U.S. economy in 2018, according to official data from the 2019 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange released by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The report indicates that Nigeria was the 11th leading place of origin for foreign students in the U.S. as of the 2018/2019 session. It accounted for 1.2 per cent of the total number of 1,095,299 international students in the country.

A breakdown of the figure shows that 5,689 of Nigerian students were at the undergraduate level; 5,274 at graduate level; 367 were non-degree students; and 2,093 were on Optional Practical Training (OPT).

OPT is a period during which undergraduate and graduate students work for one year on a student visa toward acquiring practical training to complement their education.

https://m.guardian.ng/news/ASUU-fumes-as-u-s-plans-to-deport-16000-nigerian-students/

Can u deport someone with valid papers??

What a bomb shot

see how they are treating us,one day U.S will be humble

ASUU is as much to blame as the federal government for the decay of the universities. They are the chief embezzlers of the funds meant for the running of the schools.

Why blaming the government
ASUU is the one to blame
When the FG release fund meant for schools and one VC/RECTOR diverts it to his own business.

Laslas 9ja don tire me gan

Continue fuming like exhaust pipe....you think everybody is like you

Mexzy4sho:
Can u deport someone with valid papers??

What a bombshell! Did you read the acticle?

JAOS:
see how they are treating us,one day U.S will be humble

One day? When? Nigeria as an entity is already gone.

Lol ... So ASUU think they can blame the FG when they have been the ones responsible for the backwardness in higher institutions? Some of their members are the rapists and abusive lecturers who molest students at will.
They have refused to resume academic activities because of coronavirus, instead of deploying IT and ensuring that each university has an online LMS for each department, so that courses can go on and people can keep learning from home instead of wasting another year... ASUU, please keep quiet.

Them don touch their children....

Nonsense!

ASUU is cursed...how is the reason for your present strike (IPPIS) at the interest of the students and parents?
I hate to read anything with ASUU these days...its sucks

Why deporting them, while dey could stay back there and join in the online class

Ayam not understanding, this people has really seen us fininsh, so what happens to their tuition fees and valid documents which states that they are eligible to be in their country during their cause of study

Other countries should do the same thing too.
By the time all countries deport all nigerian students and force them to do online studies all these politicians and lecturers with their children abroad will sit down and decide for what will make the education system here work.
Nonsense.
...
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Mexzy4sho:
Can u deport someone with valid papers??

If a visa, yes.

Even a green card can be rescinded.

Only citizenship by birth cannot be changed.

Nicklaus619:
Why deporting them, while dey could stay back there and join in the online class

Ayam not understanding, this people has really seen us fininsh, so what happens to their tuition fees and valid documents which states that they are eligible to be in their country during their cause of study

trump is pushing for reopening and if they don't reopen they might as well just suspend student visas.

In other words, our brothers and sisters that hustle their way to the US for a better life through student visa will be deported and their efforts and money will be wasted. Trust me, 50 per cent of the deported Nigerians wouldn't continue with the online classes.

You think say na school carry them go there.

The truth is that ASUU strikes contribute to the reason many Nigerians look elsewhere for university education.

ASUU fumes... Rubbish talk

So sad sha.. abeg make all of una come back home make we join hands in making our schools better

Makavelli25:
Why blaming the government
ASUU is the one to blame
When the FG release fund meant for schools and one VC/RECTOR diverts it to his own business.

Laslas 9ja don tire me gan

I beg to disagree with you.

Only if the Individuals and Government, Has made our educational sector standard... this shit wouldn't have been happening..
imagine $514 million spent by Nigerian students in US alone let alone other countries that about...
199,077,340,000.00 billion naira...

F

Our leaders should begin to take education serious, in Nigeria.

Courses such as medicine that requires physical classroom presence should not be affected by this.

Corona virus has suddenly become the needed push required for most higher institutions to reform their teaching practices. Many courses can be studied online, without requiring physical classroom presence. Though undeniably, classroom presence and the socialisation makes uni worthy.

.

Our Leaders Need To Start Putting The Country In Order Before Other Small Small Countries Start Insulting Us.





And If U.S.A.Chose to do as They Have Said,Let The Students Take Heart And Go Back Home,
It is Not The End Of Road/World for Them.





#God Is The Greatest.

ok

Nigerian government have failed in all ramifications...
ASUU should just go and relax cos they too are part of the reason our education is at comatose

Noted

I don’t blame them. I blame this on Both our previous and currently Government that decided not to restore the glory of the country’s education system. otherwise why should we travel overseas to have qualitative and sound education!! Thank f ASU make them no face the government and be fighting another country government!!

Fuming cupboard !

If you weren’t such a useless union with useless unruly members as lecturers, a lot of students will not be seeking education outside in country!!

Foolish handout selling, female student molesting lecturers...

Fume my ass