We list 6 fully Funded Undergraduate Medicine & Health Sciences Scholarships for Nigerian Students, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. Most are held in China (3), Australia (1) and Romania (1). 5 state eligibility that includes Nigerian applicants. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
These awards do not restrict the field of study, so medicine & health sciences applicants can apply too.
Written from the 6 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 6 min read.
This page collects 6 fully funded scholarships for a first degree in medicine and health sciences, open to Nigerian students who have finished secondary school. Every award on the list is labelled fully funded, and every one sits at bachelors level. Five of the six also carry master's and PhD study, but the entry point for a reader with WAEC or NECO is the undergraduate route.
The awards are spread across four countries. China carries the largest share with 3 awards, then Australia, Romania and the United States with 1 each. Six different providers appear: participating Australian institutions, a group of Shanghai universities, a group of Beijing universities, Berea College, Romanian universities, and the Hubei Government. That spread matters because it means no single application system, no single deadline calendar and no single document set.
Of the 6 awards, 5 are open to Nigerians. One of those names Nigeria or the region directly in its eligibility text. The other 4 carry no nationality restriction at all. For the remaining award, eligibility is not stated on the award page, so check the provider's own terms before you spend money on transcripts or courier fees.
What you need in hand is your senior secondary result — WAEC, NECO, NABTEB or SSCE — and, for most of these, an admission offer from the institution before the scholarship itself is confirmed. Each award page quotes its own entry requirement, and medicine and health sciences programmes often add subject requirements in biology, chemistry and physics on top of the general cut-off.
If you are already mid-way through a Nigerian degree, or you hold an HND, this particular list is not built for you. It is a first-degree list. The same collection has master's and PhD awards alongside these, and the level filters will take you there.
Fully funded does not mean the same thing from one award to the next. Read what each one says in writing rather than assuming a standard package.
Those counts are what the awards state in their own text. They are not a promise that a given award covers a given line. Where an award is silent on a benefit, treat it as something you may have to fund yourself, and budget for it before you accept a place. For a Nigerian student paying for a transcript, a courier and possibly an English test out of pocket, the gap between tuition-only and tuition-plus-stipend is the difference between a workable plan and a shortfall in your second semester.
The document load is modest on paper and heavy in practice. Across the 6 awards:
Only one award states an English test in its own requirements, so do not assume all six need IELTS. Check each page. Where a test is not named, the institution may still ask for proof of English, or may waive it on the strength of your secondary school English result — that is a question for the admissions office, not for the scholarship page.
The recommendation letters are worth starting early. A teacher or principal who has known you for three years will write a stronger letter than one you approach in the week of the deadline, and Nigerian school offices are not fast at producing signed, stamped copies. Ask for more copies than you need.
Where an admission offer is required first, the sequence is: apply to the institution, wait, receive the offer, then apply for the scholarship. That pushes your real start date back by weeks or months. Plan the whole chain, not just the scholarship deadline.
Two of the 6 awards carry a stated date, 2 are still open, and 4 are undated on the page. Two recur annually. The busiest months are March and April, with one award closing in each.
The two closing soonest are:
Both are open to Nigerians and both cover undergraduate study. The Romania award runs through Romanian universities and also carries master's and PhD level. The Australia Awards route runs through participating Australian institutions and likewise spans undergraduate, master's and PhD.
The undated awards are not closed. Four of them simply do not print a fixed closing date on the page — the Shanghai Government Scholarship, for instance, runs between January and June of each year, and the Beijing and Hubei awards direct you to their details for the deadline. Treat an undated award as one you must chase directly with the provider, because the window may be short and may not be announced in advance.
China holds 3 of the 6 awards — the Shanghai Government Scholarship, the Beijing Government Scholarship and the Hubei Government Scholarship. All three are fully funded, all three span undergraduate, master's and PhD, and all three are provincial or municipal schemes administered through universities rather than a single national body. That means the university you name on your application matters, and the deadline you face may be the university's, not the scheme's.
Australia holds 1 award, the Australia Awards, delivered through participating Australian institutions and closing 30 April.
Romania holds 1 award, the Romania Government Scholarships, delivered through Romanian universities and closing 12 March.
The United States holds 1 award, the Berea College Scholarships for international students, which is undergraduate only and lists more than one deadline across the cycle — November, January and March dates appear on the page.
Duration varies by country and by whether the programme is a direct-entry medical degree or a health sciences bachelors. The awards on this page quote bachelor's programmes of 4 to 5 years in one case, 4 years or longer depending on the major in another, and 3 to 6 years at undergraduate level in a third. Master's runs 1.5 to 2 years and PhD 3 to 4 years where those levels are offered.
For a Nigerian student, that length matters for two reasons. First, funding is usually reviewed each year, so a four-to-six year programme means four to six rounds of satisfactory progress. Second, a long absence from home has cost implications — flights, remittances, and the price of returning for family events — that a tuition-only award will not touch.
Start with the two dated awards, because they are the ones you can plan around. Read the Romania page first if you want the earliest deadline, then the Australia Awards page. Both accept Nigerian applicants and both take you in at undergraduate level.
Then work through the undated awards and contact the providers directly for their current cycle dates. Do not wait for a date to appear on a page.
Alongside that, gather your documents once and reuse them: your WAEC or NECO result, your secondary school testimonial, a passport photograph to specification, and two academic referees who have agreed in advance to write for you. Order your transcript and any certified copies early, and keep a scanned set in cloud storage so a lost envelope does not cost you a deadline.
Finally, be honest about the English test question. Only one award on this list states IELTS or TOEFL as a requirement, but the institution behind each award may ask separately. Confirm with the admissions office before you pay for a test you may not need — and confirm before you assume you are exempt.
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