Prof. Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, hinted at a potential revision of the age criteria for admission to Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
Setting 18 as the entrance age into tertiary institutions. The minister urged parents not to rush their underage children into pursuing higher education, particularly at the university level.
Speaking to reporters after overseeing the recent Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) across various Abuja centers, Prof.Mamman expressed concern about the age of some exam takers, emphasizing that they were considerably younger than the standard age for university admission.
In his words:
“The examination process is seamless. The environment is comfortable for students. That’s how it should be, especially with the use of technology in our affairs and the educational system. It makes life easy for everybody and seamless.
“As we know, this examination is going on throughout the country. It is being monitored everywhere seamlessly and from the report I have heard, the malpractice level is very low, just a 100 out of 1.2m. It has gone believe that. It is the use of technology that has made that happen, so this is very good. “The other thing which we noticed is the age of those who have applied to go to the university. Some of them are really too young. We are going to look at it because they are too young to understand what the university education is all about.
“That’s the stage when students migrate from a controlled environment where they are in charge of their own affairs. So if they are too young, they won’t be able to manage properly.
“We are going to look at that. 18 is the entry age for university. But you will see students, 15, 16, going to the examination. It is not good for us. Parents should be encouraged not to push their wards, children too much.”
