Formal Education as a Facilitator of Migration and Integration: A Case Study of Nigerian University Graduates

The transnational lives and third space subjectivities of British Nigerian girls

“…Other respondents expressed varying degrees of attachment to a national identity in which they affirm their Nigerian and British cultural heritage, while also negating a sense of national belonging (cf. Mbah 2017). In this sense, they articulate and embody key features of contemporary transnational European subjectivities.…”

“…Most came for education and planned to return to an independent Nigeria to contribute to nation-building (Harris 2006: 23). The UK has historically been the first choice of destination for Nigerian educational migration (Mbah 2017). Those who came throughout the 1960s for education and work left their children in Nigeria, sent them home from the UK, or fostered them to white British families (Goody and Groothues 2007).…”

“…Her sense of national belonging is affirmed through a material and affective connection to the nation (cf. Mbah 2017).…”

African Universities as Employers of Returning Graduates from Germany: The Example of Ghana and Cameroon

“…In their view governments are negatively involved in employment decisions regarding academics, with recruitment not being based solely on merit, but on ethnic affiliation and social background. This entanglement was claimed by the respondents of the study in Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Sudan: "decisions for appointment are not taken on the basis of skills, talents and possible contributions but on political views and affinity" (SOFRECO, 2015, p. 78; see also Mbah, 2017 and chapter of Schamp in this volume). In the following I address the question of whether this rather opaque job placement practice also affects Ghanaian and Cameroonian graduates returning from Germany to work in their countries' higher education sectors.…”

“…Graduates who study abroad and return to their native country undergo a double transition (see also Mbah, 2017). They not only have to reintegrate into their native countries' social environment, find a place to live, and readjust to the native's way of living, they must also enter their home countries' labor markets.…”