Sub-Saharan Africa is no longer an “emerging” recruitment market. It is already one of the most digitally confident, high-intent, and direct-engagement driven regions in global student recruitment. This session brings together student-level data and institutional practice to help Canadian institutions better understand how students in West Africa research, apply, and decide and what that means for recruitment strategies in 2026 and beyond.

Drawing on findings from Student Direct’s West Africa Student Voice 2025 survey and Douglas College’s experience working in the market for more than 10 years, this session will unpack how students in Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon are making decisions, why they increasingly prefer to apply directly to institutions, and how expectations around speed, communication, and transparency are reshaping trust.

Alongside these insights, Douglas College will share an institutional perspective on what it actually takes to respond to these expectations, including operational constraints, visa realities, internal alignment, and the shift toward more student-centric engagement models.