In response to objections from interested parties during the current Policy meeting hosted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, or JAMB, the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, has relented in his decision to set the undergraduate entry age at 18.
According to Mamman, heads of postsecondary institutions may be permitted to admit 16-year-old applicants to the postsecondary schools of their choosing.
After it was argued that students under the age of eighteen had already registered, taken, and passed the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), and were waiting to be admitted, the minister was obliged to give in.
Proposing 16 as the minimum age criterion for entrance into higher schools, Elizade University Vice Chancellor Prof. Kayode Thadius Ijiadunola led the motion and received overwhelming support from other heads, the registrar, and admission officers present at the policy meeting.
He said, “What happens to those who have written this year’s exams and passed their exams? We reject 18 years as the minimum age requirement and are proposing 16 years.”
As the hall erupted in favor of a 16-year minimum requirement, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, the Registrar of JAMB, questioned where parents and applicants were hurrying to.
Oloyede said: “The only point is they have taken examinations and at that time they were not told or aware and therefore if we want to enforce it, it should be from subsequent years.”
The minister in response had said, “I can work with that but I want to remind you of one thing, even that argument cannot stand if we want to go by the law which states 6-3-3-4 as our system of education, it won’t stand but for practical reasons, for this year, I will allow it to stand.”
Prof. Oloyede continued, “We thank the minister for conceding but from next year we will enforce it,” restating the minister’s decision in the face of thunderous applause.
The minister had earlier pushed for the implementation of 18 as the new minimum admission age for admission into tertiary institutions in the nation during his speech as chairman of the 2024 Joint Admissions Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) policy meeting on Education, which was held on Thursday in Abuja.
The statement was met with opposition right away by the stakeholders who attended from all of the nation’s post-secondary institutions, turning the meeting into a boisterous one. Prof. Tahir Mamman is the Minister of Education.
Are we together? the minister had asked, unable to continue with his speech due to the commotion.
But the stakeholders had said “No!” emphatically in response.
The minister proceeded with his speech, seemingly unfazed by the news, and attempted to justify setting the new admittance standard at 18.
The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, had to step in and ask that everyone pay attention in order to bring order back to the policy meeting.
The annual policy meeting on education takes place every year. It gave permission for the nation’s postsecondary institutions to begin accepting applications.
More information to follow…..
