The minister reiterated the government's position that only applicants who were 18 years and above were eligible for admission into tertiary institutions.
The event played out like a rowdy parliamentary session, though, without a gavel to punctuate ruling or proclamation on a contentious educational issue.
The occasion was a policy meeting, organised by the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) recently in Abuja, which had in attendance the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, and stakeholders in the education sector.
The minister reiterated the government's position that only applicants who were 18 years and above were eligible for admission into tertiary institutions in the 2024 admission process and going forward.
The minister's pronouncement, however, ignited raucousness among the stakeholders, who could not hide their resentment to the decision.
Since the pronouncement in April during a Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) monitoring exercise in Bwari, Abuja, the minister has received both hail and knock.
However, to calm frayed nerves and bring the meeting to normalcy, Mr Mamman, like a presiding officer in a parliamentary plenary, had asked, "Are we together?", while the participants chorused in unison, "No, no, no."
After the meeting was called to order, the minister took time to explain to the participants that the government's position on the 18 years admission benchmark was not novel.
He said that, according to the provisions of the nation's educational policy, a child is required to be 18 years old before securing admission to a tertiary institution, having attended six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school, and three years of senior secondary school.
Mr Mamman explained that the policy aimed at addressing key issues within tertiary institutions, particularly universities.
However, in response to the intense protest, the minister conceded to set the 2024 admission age at 16, while the law would apply from 2025.
Many have commended the minister for shifting ground and conceding to allowing students who participated in the 2024 UTME but were under 18 to gain admission.
However, many observers and stakeholders in the sector are further asking whether the federal government's one-year respite is adequate or whether the policy is in the interest of the education sector.
The federal government introduced the 6-3-3-4 system of education in 1983 with the primary focus of meeting the educational needs of its citizenry and equipping the youths with sellable skills that would make them self-reliant.
More than two decades later, a modified system, Universal Basic Education (UBE), also known as the 9-3-4, was introduced, with a curriculum expected to meet global best practices.
Experts have, however, observed that the implementation of the education policies led to the menace of admitting underage children into secondary schools.
The trend of parents pushing their children to finish their education at a very tender age has become alarming.
It has been observed that parents encourage their children to skip primary five and six and "jump" into Junior Secondary School.
This is also applicable to Senior Secondary schools as some parents push their children into taking the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) while in SS 2.
This development has led to many students graduating from secondary schools at ages 14, 15 and 16, and getting admission into tertiary institutions in the country.
The consequence is that younger, immature candidates who ought to be in the controlled space of their parents find themselves unrestrained in a tertiary school environment.
The minister had said that the development was responsible for some challenges in the higher institutions and vowed to enforce the law mandating the admission age for entry into tertiary institutions as 18 years.
Mr Mamman had also directed the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to admit only students who have attained the age of 18 years into tertiary institutions.
"This pronouncement is a reminder and if you look at all the policy documents on the schooling system in Nigeria, the UBE Act for instance, you'll find that the entry age into primary school is six.
"Age three to five years are all pre-primary school stages. Early childhood education is what they are meant for.
"When you add up the rest of the period, you find that a child is supposed to be finishing about 17 and a half years. So that's just about the period we're talking about.
"We're just reminding people. It's not a new policy we are coming up with.
"We also remind parents that jumping your children through their period of education is not very helpful. There's no need to put a child of four years in primary school," he said.
The minister explained that once a child had not attained a particular age for schooling, such a child must not be allowed to skip.
When asked if there will be any sanction for failure to obey the policy, the minister said there would be no sanction, but the child would simply not be admitted.
He noted that other examination bodies like NECO and WAEC would, henceforth, implement the age at which a student could take their examinations.
However, many Nigerians have continued to oppose the government's decision on the 18 years entry age into tertiary institutions.
They are of the opinion that the decision was harsh, as many students in this current generation don't graduate from secondary school at the required age to enable them to proceed to higher education.
Victoria Chimezie, a parent and civil servant, called on the government to consider the implications on children who graduated at 15 and 16 years and be made to stay at home for another two years before admission.
Ms Chimezie said that this would only encourage the children to get into different social vices, capable of destroying their lives, adding that "an idle mind is the devil's workshop."
She urged the government to retrace its steps by finding solutions from the bottom before implementing the admission age.
Lovelyn Anabogwu, a facilitator at the National Teachers Institute (NTI), said 16 years is an ideal age for students to gain admission to tertiary institutions because they were already mentally, physically, psychologically and emotionally suitable at that age.
She said exceptionally brilliant students, who left secondary school at 15 years old could also be considered for admission.
A parent, Alice Etuka, said that in an age of advanced technology, savvy and vibrant youths Nigeria is endowed with, it is retrogressive for a minister to propagate 18 years benchmark for entry into higher institutions.
Ms Etuka noted that technology had helped greatly in making children to grasp faster because they had many resources to help them understand their studies better.
She, therefore, called on the government to reconsider the age limit and allow entry age into tertiary institutions to be pegged at 16 years.
"Times have changed and curriculum have been improved upon. Nowadays, both parents are working and as such enroll their children in school at a very younger age.
"Topics like addition and subtraction which were learnt in Primary schools in those days, are now being taught in Nursery and the children are coping.
"Also, children in private schools can read as early as five years, so why do you want to delay their education because of a retrogressive policy?
"I call on the minister to have a rethink on this pronouncement so that we will not drive our education system and vibrant youth population backward," she said.
To the contrary, the Proprietor, ChiedField School, Joshua Oluwole, emphasised the importance of the 9-3-4 policy in getting things done right in the sector.
Mr Oluwole advised parents to get their children engaged in skills that would impact positively on them by the time they get into higher institutions.
He advised private school owners to avoid accepting age falsification, rather be strict in admitting students with the right birth certificate.
According to him, this will go a long way in checking the excesses of some parents who might want to enrol their underage children in various classes.
Similarly, Sylvester Onoja, former Commissioner for Education, Kogi State, blamed the government for rot in the educational system, for failure to implement the policy all the while.
Mr Onoja also emphasised the need for a complete character formation of students before getting into tertiary institutions.
He explained that character building was necessary to shape the personality of the students for the country, hence, the need to get the student matured before their higher education.
"Judging by the 9-3-4 system of education, 18 years is the year of maturity. A child is admitted into primary school at age six; spend six years in primary school and transits into secondary school.
"Such a child spends another six years in secondary school and you can see that by the time such a child is graduating from secondary school, he/she would have turned 18.
"Nobody goes to the university to form any character and as a result you cannot really bring character to closure until you are 18 years old," he said.
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Also, the National Deputy President, Association of Private Schools Owners of Nigeria (APSON), Mariam Magaji, pledged the readiness of the association to enforce the age policies in schools.
"On our part, we are supporting the government in providing quality education to Nigerian children.
"We are also supporting that decision of admission age, and this starts from the basic and secondary schools.
"We believe in doing that and supporting the government, we will be giving the best to the children and they can then move to tertiary institutions at that age," Ms Magaji said.
The National President of the All Nigeria Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPPS), Mohammed Musa, commended the federal government for taking the bull by the horns in its decision.
Mr Musa encouraged parents to begin to think outside the box for their underage children, stressing that, any child not up to 18 years should not be allowed into tertiary institutions.
"The issue of age when it comes to education is very important, and the 6-3-3-4 system of education is very nice, and can help our sector.
"The 6-3-3-4 system comprises skills acquisition. If a child is not capable of proceeding to senior secondary school, at least such a child would have learnt a skill.
"Because it has not been properly followed, that is why you have children coming to school skipping a grade, and this is very bad for the system.
"The child that is not psychologically and mentally prepared, getting into the tertiary institution will be a dangerous game because he/she will be opened to manipulation," Mr Musa said.
No doubt, the intention of the framers of the 9-3-4 policy was to ensure a child attains maturity age of 18 and forms good character before leaving the controlled space of their parents.
This will go a long way in curtailing vices of cultism, drug addiction, prostitution and many more, which many undergraduates are lured into on getting into unrestrained and vibrant tertiary school environments
The policy has been left unimplemented for decades, to the extent that the adopted age for admission had been 16 years and even below.
The concern is, will tertiary institutions get the required number of students in the next two to three academic sessions if this policy is implemented?
