Janet Samuel,
The Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund has expressed its support on the 18 years minimum entry age for admission into university being proposed by the Ministry of Education.
Chairman of the committee, Sen. Ganduse Mohammed, made this known , while monitoring the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, in Abuja. On Tuesday.
Ganduse said for most of the educational system and recruitment into the military, there is an age limit, saying that senate will support any amendments to relevant laws to reflect the policy.
“However, there is vocational education and other systems which somebody can attend irrespective of age and background. That is why there is distance learning, nomadic education as well as formal and informal education,” he said.
He lauded the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, for its smooth conduct of the UTME exercise saying that committee members dispatched nationwide say giving feedbacks that the performance so far has been very impressive.
According to him, more is expected to be done in respect of the challenges facing the educational system in Nigeria.
He said one of the key problems in education was addressed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he signed into law the education loan act for students to access loans for their upkeep and payment of school fees.
Earlier, while addressing some of the candidates at Government Secondary School Tudun Wada, Wuse Zone 4, he said the students would be opportune to be the first to access the N200 billion students loan approved by the Tinubu-led administration.
He urged the student to be law-abiding citizens and stay away from criminalities as well as religious and ethnic biases, knowing that Nigeria is diverse.
Speaking, a member of the committee, Senator Karimi Sunday who is the Senator representing kogi West Senatorial District maintained that everybody should have access to education
According to the lawmaker, there is an extant law stipulating the age limit but if it means to amend and such a law and make it more robust, Senate was willing to do so.
“Your age, say you are 40, 50, 60 doesn’t mean you cannot enter the university, its not a barrier but there is also a minimum age limit. You cannot be 12, 13 or 14 and enter into the university.
“What the minister said Yesterday that you have to be 18, we are not against that. Because before you can enter primary school, you have to be six and before you can enter secondary school, you have to be 12; so before you can enter into university you have to be 18,” he said.
