By Kwin Israel, The Sight News
The Senate has supported a call that candidates seeking to gain admission into the nation’s Tertiary Institutions should be at least 18 years old.
You would recall that the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, on Monday, frowned at the age of some of the candidates who applied to go to the university while noting that the Federal Government would be looking at pegging the entry age for university at 18.
Lending his voice on the matter on Tuesday in Abuja, the Senator Representing Kogi West, Senator Sunday Karimi, said for any individual to gain admission into the tertiary institution, such person must attain the minimum age limit of 18 years.
“Everybody should have access to education despite your age. Whether you are 40, 50 or 60 doesn’t mean you cannot enter the university. But, there is also a minimum age limit. You cannot be 12, 13, 14 years old and enter into the university” he said.
“What the Minister said yesterday is that you have to be 18 and we are not against it, that is okay for us because before you can enter primary school, you have to be 6 years old and before you enter secondary school, you have to be 11/12 years. So before you enter the university, you have to be 18 years old”.
Senator Karimi who said there is an existing law in place for candidates to be 18 years old before entering higher institutions,however, noted that if it means the National Assembly checking and amending it, then they are going to do so.
On his part, Chairman of the Senate Committee, Tertiary Institution and TETFund, Senator Muntari Dandutse, while monitoring the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) applauded the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for conducting a good and impressive exam.
While speaking on some of the challenges being faced by the nation’s education sector, he said “One of the key problems we have in the education sector was addressed by the President and Commander in Chief and the leadership of the National Assembly. That is the Education loan for students to access loans for their upkeep and also for payment of their student peace”.
He also said that they are looking at a means of embarking on aggressive policies that will make all the institutions and Secondary Schools to look habitable and very impressive in terms of infrastructural development.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee, Tertiary Institution and TETFund, Senator Dandutse, who monitored the 2024 UTME at Government Secondary School, Tudun Wada, Wuse Zone 4, Abuja, and Ansar-ud-deen Society Centenary Resource (CBT) Center, Maitama, Abuja, was in company of his House of Representative counterpart amongst others.
