The Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa'I, has called on foreign investors to show increase interest in the development of education in Nigeria.

The Minister made the call at the 2013 World Education Forum in London, United Kingdom, where she revealed that, "Nigeria has recorded increase in the carrying capacity of tertiary institutions across board".

Prof. Rufa'i told participants at the annual event that education in the past two years has achieved unprecedented increase as a result of the impact of new policies.

She cited the raise in primary school enrolment by 3.7 million between 2010 and 2012 and Junior Secondary School enrolment by 1.1 million between 2010 and 2012 as some of the yardstick for measuring the impact of the reforms and development in the sector.

Prof. Rufa'i said construction and rehabilitation of infrastructure and learning resources across all sectors of education and improved quality of education delivery through training of teachers also received a boost.

The minister said to address the problem of access, policies are targeted at ensuring that all sections of the population are reached while taking into account cultural and regional considerations, adding that in trying to reach out to more learners, government decided to enhance open and distance learning through the National Open University of Nigeria and other public universities.

She said that it also adopted the application of ICT in education, encourage collaboration between government, the private sector and other stakeholders in the education delivery system in Nigeria.

The minister said government has also adopted measures to improve the quality of education at tertiary levels through special grants ranging from $7m-$20m provided to develop facilities towards enhancing the institutions to centres of excellence in identified subject areas.