Nigerians have berated the recently announced partnership between President Bola Tinubu’s administration and Coventry University to bring United Kingdom degrees to the country.

The minister of education, Tunji Alausa, on Wednesday announced on his official social media handles that Nigeria was already making “real progress” toward a major partnership with the university to bring UK degrees to Africa’s most populous country.

Mr Alausa described the initiative as part of the highlights of Mr Tinubu’s state visit to the UK.

“For too long, families have had to send their children thousands of miles away in search of quality education,” the minister said. “We are changing that. With Coventry University Nigeria, our students will be able to earn fully accredited UK degrees—at a significantly lower cost—without leaving the country.”

Citing Alaro City in Lagos as the proposed campus for the institution, with programmes cutting across STEMM, business, and TVET, Mr Alausa said the initiative was about building human capital and developing the skills, talent, and workforce needed to drive innovation, productivity, and long-term national growth.

The minister’s announcement has generated reactions from Nigerians on X, who have dismissed the partnership as unnecessary amid the challenges facing tertiary institutions in the country.

A user, @ochijnr, accused the government of outsourcing prestige while local institutions continue to struggle.

“Bringing global opportunity home sounds inspiring, until you notice this administration’s obsession with cosmetics over substance. Real progress is not importing foreign logos; it’s fixing the system that made families leave in the first place,” @ochijnr said.

The user added that Nigerians would not pursue education abroad if the country’s tertiary institutions were adequately funded.

Another user, @ogarasheed, said the partnership arguably exposed decades of neglect that had left Nigerian universities struggling for relevance, funding, and global competitiveness.

“This is what happens when a government indirectly admits that we cannot build a quality education system on our own without leaning on foreign institutions,” the user said.

@ogarasheed said that, even though the initiative “sounds attractive,” it portrays Nigeria as “importing validation” rather than “fixing the foundation.”

Also condemning the partnership as a misplaced priority, @Akogun_LAMI accused the government of prioritising foreign universities at the expense of local ones.

“This is what happens when you have dumbheads in government. Your conventional universities, OAU, UNILAG, and UNIBEN, are rotting away, and you are here celebrating bringing a UK university to Nigeria. What happens to investing in your own universities to become world-class?” he said.

Another user, @Uzor, dismissed the initiative as regressive and mind-numbing, advising the government to invest in existing universities in Nigeria to deliver world-class education.

He stated, “Why not invest in our existing tertiary institutions so the degrees they issue will also be world-class? This is not progressive thinking. How you boldly put this out using ChatGPT without thinking it through thoroughly is, to say the least, mind-numbing!”

Also, @Paadejones97814 insisted that the partnership would benefit only the political class and would further deepen the country’s educational gap.

“It is shocking that you are reporting that you are making real progress. Your ‘real progress’ is to bring UK degrees to Nigeria,” the user insisted. “An arrangement that benefits only the political elites whose children never go to school in Nigeria. Your ‘real progress’ is helping your likes to curtail expenditure out there on bills incurred on their children’s education.”

@olorunwababs stated that a UK degree in Lagos would hardly deter Nigerians from migrating to the UK in search of better opportunities.

Describing the policy as imprecise and confusing, the user said the partnership would not address the crises of insecurity, infrastructural collapse, and currency devaluation affecting Nigerians.

“I am not opposed to foreign university partnerships in Nigeria. Education access matters, and more quality options are always better than fewer. But policy clarity matters too.

“When a government official frames a real estate-adjacent education deal as a japa solution, it is not just analytically imprecise; it is a signal that the people making decisions about Nigeria’s human capital crisis do not fully understand what is driving it,” he stated.