UTME: admission should not be given to candidates below 18 – FG
The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, has said that admission to tertiary institutions in Nigeria should not be given to candidates below 18.
Tahir Mamman disclosed this on Monday during a monitoring exercise of the ongoing 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Bwari, Abuja.
He noted that Nigeria operates the 6-3-3-4 system of education.
Mamman said the reason why a candidate below 18 years should not be admitted into Nigerian Higher Institution is because they are too young to understand what the whole university is all about as he urged parents not to push their wards too much.
He said: “The minimum age of entry into the university is 18, but we have seen students who are 15 and 16 years old going in for the entrance examination. Parents should be encouraged not to push their wards too much. Mostly, it is the pressure of parents that is causing this.
“We are going to look at this development because the candidates are too young to understand what the whole university education is all about.
“This is the period when children migrate from a controlled to an uncontrolled environment; when they are in charge of their affairs.
“But, if they are too young, they won’t be able to manage properly. I think that is part of what we are seeing in the universities today.”
The minister disclosed that the overall candidates that can be admitted into the University, Polytechnic and colleges of education for UTME 2024 is 20 per cent.
According to him, the ministry of Education is taking skills to pupils from primary school, noting that the skill acquisition is in the interest of those 80 percent who will not be able to gain admission into tertiary institutions.
He also noted that skill acquisition is very important.
“Any student who is unable to proceed to tertiary institutions should be able to have a meaningful life after primary and secondary school education and the only solution to this is skill acquisition.
“By taking skills right from the time they entered school, for the primary right through the educational trajectory, somebody should finish with one skill or another. That is part of the assumption of the 6-3-3-4,” he said.