Attracting, recruiting and retaining international students should be balanced with the need to provide support for the smooth transition of these students into their host countries and institutions. One way to achieve this transition is by bridging the gap between international students’ expectations and actual realities. Hence, this article examines the impact that the expectations and the realities of studying abroad have on the overall transition experiences of international students in Nigeria. The study adopted a mixed method and employed Schlossberg’s theory of transition to further understand the phenomenon of transition with regard to international students. Paper questionnaires were collected from 64 international students at two universities in Nigeria, while a subset of 20 (10 from each university) was further interviewed. The findings indicate that unmet expectations contributed largely to difficult transition experiences for the international students in Nigeria.

Higher education is often regarded as a crucial driver of development in Africa. Notably, the curricula in African higher education institutions are central to the discourse of development and the production of graduates who are sufficiently critical to challenge the historical, political, economic and social status quo in Africa. Curriculum experts in Africa have called for revisiting the purpose and the content of higher education curricula in Africa, and embracing an indigenous knowledge system that not only brings about development in nations themselves or the continent as a whole, but which also enhances human capacity. This paper argues that it is important for higher education institutions to embrace a curriculum that is synchronised to the particularities of African societies. One way to achieve this is by reforming the curriculum to reflect the realities and needs of the African continent, rather than providing a mere replica of the Western model. This paper also argues that curriculum reform is inevitable if the university is to fulfil this important role. This paper aims to answer the pertinent question; In what ways are Africa’s higher education curricula solving societal problems and meeting societal needs? This paper is guided by the theory of critical pedagogy developed by Paulo Freire and is developed through a review of the literature. The findings show that curriculum reform that promotes indigenous knowledge systems in Africa is imperative for meeting some of the needs of the African continent.