Federal Scholarship Board (FSB) Bilateral Education Agreement: Eligibility & Application Guide (2026/2027)

The Federal Scholarship Board, known as FSB, operates under Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education and manages the country’s Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) scholarships, which place Nigerian students in partner countries around the world on government to government arrangements. If you keep seeing “FSB nomination” mentioned alongside scholarships like Stipendium Hungaricum or Commonwealth Scholarships and are not sure what it actually means, this guide explains how the FSB and BEA system works.

What the Bilateral Education Agreement actually is

Nigeria has signed education agreements with several countries over the years, under which partner governments offer scholarship slots to Nigerian students, administered on Nigeria’s side through the Federal Scholarship Board. This is different from a scholarship you apply to directly as an individual with no government involvement. Instead, it works as a government to government arrangement, where:

• The partner country sets its own academic eligibility criteria and funds the scholarship, in full or in part.
• Nigeria’s FSB manages the nomination of Nigerian candidates into that country’s selection process.
• The Nigerian government has also historically paid a supplementary allowance to bilateral scholars abroad, though this was cut sharply in 2024 and student and parent groups have reported it going unpaid since then.

Which countries and scholarships fall under this system

The FSB has coordinated bilateral nominations for a range of partner countries and programmes over the years, including Hungary’s Stipendium Hungaricum, and historically other bilateral arrangements with countries such as Russia, China, Morocco, and others, depending on which agreements are active in a given period. Because which specific agreements are open and active shifts over time, check the Federal Ministry of Education’s own published list at education.gov.ng/federal-scholarships-board for the current roster of active bilateral programmes, rather than assuming every country ever associated with Nigeria’s BEA programme currently has an open slot.

Who can apply

Eligibility depends on the specific bilateral programme you are targeting, since each partner country sets its own academic requirements, covering areas such as minimum grades, age limits, and field of study. That said, general conditions across most FSB coordinated bilateral programmes typically include:

• Nigerian citizenship.
• Meeting the specific academic qualifications set by the partner country for your intended level of study, whether undergraduate, Master’s, or PhD.
• Completing both the partner country’s own online application system where one exists, and the FSB’s separate nomination process.
• Providing any additional documents the FSB specifically requests for its own nomination and screening process, which can extend beyond what the partner country’s own application system asks for.

How the application and nomination process generally works

1. Identify the specific bilateral scholarship you want, since the FSB coordinates multiple country specific programmes rather than running one single generic scholarship form.
2. Check that country’s own specific online application system, where applicable, and complete it within its published deadline. For Stipendium Hungaricum, for example, this is a separate online system from the FSB itself.
3. Contact the FSB directly and early to confirm its own internal deadline and specific nomination requirements for your chosen programme, since this internal deadline can fall earlier than the partner country’s own published date.
4. Submit any FSB specific documents it requests, separately from whatever you submitted to the partner country’s own system.
5. Confirm your nomination status directly with the FSB, since being nominated by Nigeria is what allows the partner country to actually consider your application. Submitting an application to the partner country’s system alone, without FSB nomination, generally does not result in consideration under the bilateral arrangement.

Contacting the Federal Scholarship Board

For bilateral education agreement matters, reach the FSB, now officially called the Department of Scholarship Awards under the Federal Ministry of Education, through the official channels listed below:

• Address: Plot 245 Samuel Ademulegun Street, Central Business District, Abuja
• Email: [email protected]
• Website: education.gov.ng/federal-scholarships-board and scholarship.education.gov.ng

The board has warned that bilateral scholarship processing does not attract any processing fee, so treat anyone asking you to pay for a nomination as a fraudster.

Why many qualified applicants miss out

The most common reason a genuinely qualified Nigerian applicant misses out on a bilateral scholarship is not academic. It is misunderstanding the two step structure, applying only to the partner country’s own system, and assuming that is sufficient, without ever contacting the FSB for the separate nomination step. The reverse mistake, contacting only the FSB without completing the partner country’s own online application where one exists, is equally fatal to an application.

Staying updated on which agreements are currently active

Because bilateral agreements between governments can be renewed, paused, or renegotiated, the list of currently active programmes is not fixed permanently. Build a habit of checking the Federal Ministry of Education’s scholarship pages directly, rather than relying on older articles or social media posts that may describe an agreement that has since changed, such as changes to the Nigerian supplementary allowance.

Conclusion

The FSB’s Bilateral Education Agreement scholarships open real doors for Nigerian students, but only for applicants who understand that this is a two step process: the partner country’s own application, plus a separate nomination through the FSB itself. Identify your target programme, confirm the FSB’s current list of active agreements at education.gov.ng/federal-scholarships-board, complete both the country’s own system and the FSB’s nomination requirements, and follow up directly with the FSB through its official channels on education.gov.ng/federal-scholarships-board to confirm your nomination status.