The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, has reversed his decision to raise the minimum admission age to 18 years, following intense protests from stakeholders at the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) policy meeting in Abuja.
After intense lobbying by Vice Chancellor of Elizade University, Prof. Kayode Thadius Ijiadunola, and other stakeholders, the minister conceded that 16-year-old candidates who have passed the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) should be allowed to gain admission into tertiary institutions.
Ijiadunola had 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.”
To this, the hall erupted in applause.
Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, Registrar of JAMB, cautioned that enforcing the new age requirement should be delayed until subsequent years, as candidates were not aware of the change.
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 ultimately yielded to the protests, agreeing to maintain the status quo for this year’s admission process. However, he hinted that the new age requirement would be enforced from next year.
He 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.”
The minister’s initial proposal to raise the admission age to 18 years was met with resistance from stakeholders, who argued that it would unfairly affect candidates who had already registered and passed the UTME.
The policy meeting is an annual event which authorizes the commencement of admission into tertiary institutions.
