Foreign students are big business in northern Cyprus, a tiny, breakaway statelet only recognized by Turkey, but some warn that university recruiters are selling “dreams” in the internationally and economically isolated territory.
One Nigerian student, who asked to remain anonymous, said he expected to arrive in the country whose soccer teams compete in European tournaments.
Instead, when he saw the currency was the embattled Turkish lira, he realized this was “not the Cyprus I thought it was.”
Photo: AFP
The Mediterranean island is divided between the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and a northern statelet established after Turkey launched a 1974 invasion in response to a Greek-sponsored coup.
The self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) is home to just several hundred thousand people, but hosts 21 universities officially recognized by the breakaway authorities and Turkey.
International students pay tuition in euros or US dollars, and sometimes also for accommodation — a windfall for the territory’s isolated economy.
The Republic of Cyprus, an EU member, is facing record numbers of new asylum seekers, most arriving from across the UN-patrolled buffer zone, and accuses Turkey of encouraging the influx.
Almost half of the north’s more than 108,000 “active” tertiary students were from outside the TRNC or Turkey in the 2021-2022 academic year, with about 17,400 from Nigeria alone in the spring semester, official figures showed.
TRNC Minister of National Education and Culture Nazim Cavusoglu estimated that the university sector and its indirect revenues fueled about 35 percent of the north’s GDP — “far ahead of tourism.”
Relatively low tuition fees — sometimes less than US$3,000 per year — are a major selling point, and are often presented as if marked down by “scholarships” of up to 75 percent.
However, a university official who asked to remain anonymous said that this was a “trick.”
“It is not like we are giving these scholarships” to international students, he said, adding that the marked-down price is the actual tuition cost.
Real international tuition waivers were few, he added.
Some students said they had been misled about study or work opportunities, or were not told they were coming to a divided island.
Cameroonian Rictus Franck Ngongang, 28, said he wanted “the magic” of easy entry, but was duped by a recruiter.
The business student’s “first shock” was finding “there were 10 of us in a two-room flat,” after he paid 300 euros (US$309) for a month’s accommodation. He was also not enrolled in the course he expected.
He has since started a support association — also involving agents — to try to help other students in difficulty.
Some recruiters “sell dreams,” he said.
At northern Nicosia’s small American University of Cyprus — which officials said has no stand-alone US university accreditation — foreign students were learning Turkish in a classroom with Ottoman-style windows as the Muslim call to prayer rang out over the divided city.
However, head of student affairs Hazan Serifli said half of the institution’s 200 international students were not attending.
Some “lose their [financial] sponsors ... or some other things happen,” public relations and marketing director Engin Sirvan said, adding that it was not the university’s role to police attendance.
A report by the north’s Center for Migration, Identity and Rights Studies said that impoverished foreign students risked falling “into the hands of criminal elements,” and that the situation “facilitates human trafficking and exploitation.”
Cavusoglu said legislation was being drafted requiring agents to be accredited with the TRNC Ministry of National Education and Culture, and to provide financial guarantees.
A representation of modern Turkey’s founder and first president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk hanging on the wall behind his desk, he also said that there were up to 15,000 “passive” students not attending classes.
Nigerian Ibrahim Isaac, who runs a small agency, had a blunt message for prospective students: “If you don’t have the money ... don’t come.”
Education expert Salih Sarpten said the north is “unprepared” to host so many universities.
The territory is turning into a place for young people who “want to take a shortcut to Europe,” he said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS