Authors : Eugenia Chinenye Ndukwe

Volume/Issue : Volume 11 - 2026, Issue 3 - March

Google Scholar : https://tinyurl.com/3fthrac9

Scribd : https://tinyurl.com/5fex6d7r

DOI : https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/26mar1980

Note : A published paper may take 4-5 working days from the publication date to appear in PlumX Metrics, Semantic Scholar, and ResearchGate.

Abstract : The impact of foreign aid in spurring development is a hot and highly controversial topic among development scholarship. In this paper, a comparative analysis will be given on education cooperation and aid strategies of China and Japan towards Nigeria in the decade 2015 to 2025. It questions the magnitude and nature of educational assistance by the two countries, the level in which the interventions assisted in the formation of human capital and the extent to which these interventions can be used as a tool of soft power projection. Based on the information presented in the China-Africa Research Initiative (CARI), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), follow-up FOCAC Action Plans and TICAD declarations, the paper recognizes a significant difference in the aid doctrine of the two nations. The education cooperation practiced by China is under the frameworks of FOCAC and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and focuses on the infrastructure provision, Luban Workshop TVET model and mass scholarship programmes. As a TICAD-member, Japan focuses on the sustained technical cooperation, qualitative capacity building and institutional reform. The paper traces the development of both systems throughout the decade, analyses the overlap of educational assistance by geopolitical rivalry and assesses the institutional obstacles limiting the capacity of Nigeria to either fully capitalize on either of the systems. It concludes by making policy recommendations of how both partnerships can be better used by Nigeria to deal with the human capital gap.

Keywords : Foreign Aid, Educational Cooperation, China, Japan, Nigeria, FOCAC, BRI, TVET, Luban Workshop, SMASSE, TICAD, Human Capital Development, Soft Power, Capacity Building, South-South Cooperation.

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