Nigeria Office

At the University of Huddersfield we have seven international offices - Nigeria, India, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and later this summer we will be opening an office in Pakistan. 

In this article, we are going to focus on the Nigerian office. The Nigerian office was the first to be set up by the University in 2011, based in Lagos.  

The regional office has grown to two members of staff, with Ms. Tomi Orojinmi based in Lagos (commercial hub of Nigeria) and Mr Wilson Kumesine based in Port Harcourt (centre of oil and gas production). Both staff are alumni of the Business School.  Last year the office helped recruit 279 new students to a range of courses at the University. 

The Nigeria regional office was set up to counter some of the associated challenges of reaching students in Nigeria by providing a range of “on the ground” support services to prospective international students from the region. This office works closely with a host of agents and collaborates with local institutions and colleges to drive student recruitment. The Nigerian office also helps raise the profile of the University of Huddersfield to prospective international students, interested parents and the academic community across Nigeria. Both Wilson and Tomi work closely to organise regular travel to Abuja, the capital of Nigeria as well as to other regions across Nigeria. They also frequently visit Ghana. They provide guidance, application support services and pre-departure briefings to students. They also work with agents and attend major student recruitments events organised by the British Council and key agents in the market. 

The Nigerian market is characterised by some key factors, these include a very large percentage of prospective students who are family/self-funded. It is largely a postgraduate taught programme dependent market, although a growing number of applicants are also looking to study Bachelor’s degree courses and PhD research programmes.  

Word of mouth and student recommendation plays a key role in how students make a choice of where they study in the UK. 

As a majority of applicants are self-funded, they are equally cost-sensitive so part of our strategy has been the recommendation to the University to provide tuition fee scholarships, discounts, flexible payments options and maintain its free advisory and application services.  

The office also relies on regular in-country visits from colleagues both from the International Office and Academic schools to partake in Agents events, School Visits and promotional Radio Talk shows. UK representation is key at these events although the recent global pandemic greatly impacted our ability to have this type of support in-country, however, the international officer for the region has been able to remotely organise a wide series of webinars and weekly drop-in sessions.