(Tunji Alausa. Photo Credit: The Street Journal)
According to Dr. Tunji Alausa, the Minister of Education, the Federal Government has raised the number of students admitted to nursing schools each year from roughly 20,000 to 50,000 in an effort to strengthen Nigeria’s health workforce and address the country’s shortage of medical professionals.
Education Minister Dr. Tunji Alausa disclosed this during an interview with journalists on Sunday, explaining that the expansion of nursing admissions forms part of broader education reforms aimed at producing the skilled workforce needed to drive President Bola Tinubu’s vision of building a $1 trillion economy by 2030.
The minister said the government was deliberately investing in human capital development by expanding access to professional education in critical sectors, stressing the ambition to position Nigeria as a global manpower supplier by producing competent, skilled and educated young Nigerians capable of driving the domestic economy, contributing to Africa’s growth and competing globally.
He explained that the Federal Government had aggressively expanded admissions into health-related programmes to address longstanding shortages of healthcare workers, disclosing that annual enrolment into nursing schools has risen from about 20,000 students before the current administration took office to approximately 50,000, with admissions into medicine, pharmacy and dentistry also significantly increased.
Alausa expressed confidence that these reforms would substantially ease the shortage of healthcare professionals within the next few years as thousands of newly trained graduates enter the workforce, adding that education would remain central to the President’s vision of building a trillion-dollar economy.
He attributed the expansion to Tinubu’s commitment to education and human capital development, describing education as the foundation for sustainable economic growth.
He also reiterated that the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) was designed with long-term sustainability in mind, stressing that policies introduced by the administration are meant to endure beyond its tenure, and that sustainability guided the design of the fund.
He further said the administration had restored industrial harmony in tertiary institutions through dialogue with academic and non-academic staff unions, noting that the resulting stability was contributing to improved outcomes across the higher education sector.
Nigeria has faced a persistent shortage of nurses and other healthcare professionals, driven largely by years of underinvestment in training capacity and the growing migration of health workers to countries offering better pay and working conditions a trend that has placed additional strain on the country’s healthcare system, particularly at the primary and secondary levels.
To reverse the shortage, the Federal Government has expanded admissions into nursing and other health-related programmes while also investing in Technical and Vocational Education and Training and other human capital development initiatives.
This comes amid growing concern over the “Japa” phenomenon, which has seen thousands of Nigerian-trained nurses and doctors relocate abroad in recent years, creating notable gaps in the domestic health workforce.
The government maintains that expanding training capacity is essential to meeting local healthcare needs while positioning Nigeria as a supplier of skilled professionals to the global labour market.