FG Doubles Nursing School Intake to 50,000

The Federal Government has more than doubled the number of students admitted into nursing schools each year, raising annual intake from about 20,000 to roughly 50,000, in a bid to close the widening gap in a health workforce steadily depleted by emigration. The disclosure came from the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, who spoke to journalists at the weekend and framed the expansion as central to President Bola Tinubu’s ambition of building a one trillion dollar economy by 2030.

Alausa cast the intervention as part of a deliberate human capital strategy rather than a standalone health measure. “We want to be the manpower supplier of the world. We need to produce competent, skilled and educated young Nigerians who will drive our economy, contribute to Africa’s growth and compete successfully across the world,” he said. According to him, admissions into medicine, pharmacy and dentistry have also been significantly expanded, and the reforms should reduce the shortage of healthcare professionals within a few years as fresh graduates enter the system.

The urgency behind the figures is not in dispute. Nigeria, with a population estimated at about 234.5 million and projected to reach roughly 401 million by 2050, remains one of the most understaffed major health systems in the world. The Minister of State for Health, Dr Iziaq Salako, has put the country’s doctor to population ratio at 1 to 5,000 and the nurse to population ratio at 1 to 2,000, both far below the thresholds his ministry cites as ideal. The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria estimates that only about 55,000 licensed doctors are in active practice for the entire country, even though far more are registered.

The drain feeding those numbers has a name that has entered everyday speech. “Japa,” the Yoruba expression for fleeing abroad, now describes a sustained exodus of trained professionals chasing better pay, safer hospitals and clearer career paths. Data from the United Kingdom’s Nursing and Midwifery Council showed 16,156 Nigerian trained nurses on its register as of 30 September 2025, up from 15,421 six months earlier, making Nigeria the third largest source of foreign trained nurses in Britain after the Philippines and India. Separate estimates cited across health sector briefings put total nurse departures at about 57,000 over five years, while the Nigerian Medical Association has reported that more than 9,000 doctors left between 2016 and 2023, with an estimated 60 percent of newly qualified doctors seeking work abroad. Officials have referenced a cumulative loss of about 94,000 doctors and nurses since the trend accelerated.

Against that backdrop, the government has leaned heavily on training capacity as its primary answer. Health authorities have pointed to a 160 percent rise in medical school admissions between 2023 and 2025, alongside the approval of 20,000 new health worker positions, most of them for nurses and midwives, and a national retention strategy meant to keep staff at home. The World Health Organisation’s Africa office has publicly acknowledged Nigeria’s push to scale up nursing and midwifery education as part of a broader workforce reform.

Yet the precise scale of the enrolment expansion has been presented differently at different times, a point that merits careful attention. In April 2025, Alausa announced through his official channels that annual nursing enrolment had jumped from 28,000 in 2023 to an unprecedented 115,000, a figure later echoed by the WHO’s Africa office. The 50,000 figure offered at the weekend sits well below that earlier claim. The ministry has not publicly reconciled the two sets of numbers, and it is not clear whether they measure the same thing, such as approved admission quota against actual enrolment across the nursing, midwifery and post basic streams. Readers should treat the enrolment totals as official statements that have varied rather than as settled, audited data.

Questions of quality shadow the questions of quantity. The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria listed 290 approved nursing training institutions as of December 2025, each carrying a defined admission quota tied to its accreditation status and facilities. Rapid expansion tests whether classrooms, clinical placements and qualified tutors can keep pace with intake. In a circular dated 1 September 2025 and signed by its Registrar, Ndagi Alhassan, the Council scrapped its long standing rule that expelled student nurses after three failed attempts at the professional examination, directing instead that candidates re-sit only the failed sections while maintaining at least 80 percent attendance. The Council described the shift as aligning with global best practice, though the timing, amid a surge in student numbers, has drawn scrutiny over standards. The Council has also faced sustained complaints over a backlog of licensing certificates, with affected graduates threatening nationwide protests from June 2026.

Alausa used the weekend remarks to defend the wider record of the administration in the sector. He said the Nigerian Education Loan Fund was designed for long term sustainability, noting that “there is no value in introducing policies that cannot stand the test of time.” He added that the government had restored industrial calm in tertiary institutions by paying 50 percent of inherited withheld salaries and approving a salary increase of nearly 40 percent for staff, and pointed to an improvement in the number of Nigerian universities featured in the Times Higher Education ranking, from 21 to 24.

The strategic logic is clear. A young and growing population, properly trained, could become an export of skilled labour rather than a liability. The counterargument, pressed by workforce analysts and professional bodies, is equally clear. Training more nurses achieves little if the conditions driving them out, including low wages, poor infrastructure, insecurity and limited advancement, remain unchanged. On present evidence, Nigeria is producing health workers faster than before while still losing many of them to wealthier systems. Whether the 50,000 intake narrows the gap or simply refills the pipeline that empties overseas will depend on reforms that lie well beyond the admission register.