By

Patrick Ngwaogu

 

Recently the news went viral on the Internet of a 17 year old Chicago teenager named Dorothy Jean Tillman who became the youngest person in the world to obtain a PHD degree  at the age of 17. 

She took her first university course at the age of 10. At the age of 14, Dorothy Jean Tillman had obtained an associate diploma, a bachelors degree and a masters degree.  

Here in Nigeria, the Minister Of Education Tahir Mamman,  at a Joint Admission And Matriculation Board (JAMB) 2024 policy meeting revealed that candidates seeking admission into higher institutions must now be 18 years and above.

 Mamman pegged the minimum age for admission into universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education at 18 years.

The minister said the decision is already a “policy” the federal government has keyed into. He said candidates are expected to be more mature at 18 years old.

He said aggrieved parties can approach the national assembly to amend the policy.

The directive, he said will take effect from 2025.

However, after much resistance by participants present at the meeting, the Minister accepted 16 years as the admission age into tertiary institutions for ONLY the 2024/2025 academic session.

The minister succumbed following the argument that students under the age of 18 had already registered, sat and passed the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and were awaiting admission.

Leading the motion against the minister’s pronouncement, Professor Kayode Ijiadunola, who got massive support from other heads, registrars and admission officers who participated in the policy meeting, proposed 16 as the minimum age requirement for admission into tertiary institutions.

“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 we are proposing 16 years,” he said.

While the hall erupted in support of 16 years as a minimum requirement, the Registrar of JAMB asked where parents and candidates were rushing to.

“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,” Professor Oloyede said.

The minister in response says, “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.”

Reiterating the minister’s decision amidst resounding applause, Professor Oloyede added, “We thank the minister for conceding but from next year we will enforce it.”

Exclusive News seek the opinion of Nigerians on the new educational policy. To Barrister Babatunde Akintade, the policy is a welcomed one. "Honestly for me it's a good decision, this will enable the students to be able to make good decisions and be responsible for same while in school". To Akeem Busari such policies are not ideal for a developing economy like Nigeria. Children of whatever age should be given the opportunity to be in school, no matter the age. "I don't think the decision is a good one. This won't happen in other saner climes".

To another Nigerian who never wanted his name to be mentioned, "In reality, i am one of those who have agitated for this. What we have now is a situation that parents pride themselves in telling people how their children graduated at a certain age. It doesn't worth it, because what we see in schools now is children that are not matured enough to take the rigour of academics. That is the major reason why parents go to every extent to pay gratification to push their wards. If it's a mature set of people, they will know their left from right. Not what we have now in the Universities".

A veteran broadcaster Ernest Osagbue said that there is nothing wrong with the policy, but implementing such is always the problem. He said that those who enacted the policy, would also be the people to circumvent it.

In his words, he said "I believe it is a very good development. I say so because there's a problem in our country where showing off has become a norm. Mothers no longer want to wean their children properly. They prefer to shuffle them off to school prematurely to enable them to be free.

On the other hand, some parents want to prove that their children are so smart because they graduated at an early age. This has resulted in parents, mothers especially, finding ways to FastTrack their children's education so as to impress friends". 

"If you visit some schools, especially primary schools, what you find are children who are not of school age being enrolled in classes. I even think that is where the challenge stems from, where children begin school before they are of school age. In that sense, maybe the government should make it compulsory for children to attain a certain age before being admitted into primary school. If that is done, then it would become difficult for underage students at the tertiary level". 

Having said all that, I equally acknowledge that there are exceptional students, who may be mentally more mature than their age, I believe that the government is equally aware of this, and so when a student exhibits knowledge beyond his years, then the system will take care of that as an exception". 

"Another problem we have is that when rules are made by those in authority, it is them who equally go behind to break those rules. As it stands now, you can be sure that the same government officials shouting about this will be the same
people looking for ways to circumvent it.  And when they succeed, other parents join them, and before you know it, we'll be back at the beginning". 

"In a nutshell, I support the rule, but it must be enforced across the board, or we can kickstart it by enforcing it from the primary school level".

However, Mr. Thompson Ojukwu and Dr Iyke Nwokedi disagrees with the position of the government on the admission age. Ojukwu was more spiritual in his analysis, drawing inferences from recent happenings in the country "God told parents to go unto the world to multiply. The same God said leave the children to come unto Him because  the paradise is for people like them . So from the creation ,  God loves the children. The question one is bound to ask is  , does the Nigeria Government loves the children in quote . A critical look at the government programs these days  shows that something  is wrong somewhere .       Let's go back to Covid period , who died most ? , children !. Let's go back to end sars protest in Lagos , who died most ? ,  children  !. Fuel increase , who suffers  most ? Children  !.   Now if by what the government is saying on entry admission requirements for kids to Universities is true , it is a way of sending the children to extinction in Nigeria , watch out  .  That means ,  intelligence will be a thing of the past and the genius types would be discouraged in the generation to come . And depression and suicide will be the order of the days . There are pupils  who are too intelligent that undergo rapid promotions in the pursuit of their educational careers , what would be the faith of such children ? It is appalling that one can wake up to hear that government is trying to jettison such brighter movement .  That means , the ones that will finish school ahead of others will now stay at home waiting and doing nothing until they clocked the said age . This will encourage  some parents to cheat because they will swear to raise the age of their intelligent children to meet up with the requirements .The annoying part of it is that the people making this policies are the people that had enjoyed the government subvention in their days . Many of them trained  their children abroad . That means their target is to suffer the middle and low level people in the country . Watch out .  They are going to increase the school fees and make things really difficult for people .             In the past  , there used to be a statutory budget for youths sports from the primary schools , where the raw talents were discovered , today it is history as government no longer organized primary school games , even upto secondary schools . The idea of making entry point to University 18years or 16years is to be killed at the formative level because overseas, children move up to the next level without age barriers or without  exams yet they are doing well ".

To Dr Nwokedi, "I don't think the recent move is right for our education system, owing to the fact that there are fast learners and young persons with Low latent inhibition, I think the minimum age should have been adjusted to 15. Keeping a teenager who finished his secondary school education at 14 at home for another four years before securing admission does not bode well for his/her mental and social development" he concluded