Dr. Yusuf Sununu, the minister of State for Education, has said there is no age limit for students participating in any ordinary level examination.
He said the clarification became necessary due to media reports misrepresenting the statement of the Minister of Education.
Dr. Sununu explained this at a Press briefing in Abuja, saying that the ministry was only enforcing the age limit for entry into tertiary institutions as enshrined in the National Policy on Education.
“Nobody among the two of us stated anything about age for WAEC, NECO, NBAIS, NABTEB or any examination. All we have been mentioning is about age of entry or admission into university.
When you look at our National policy on Education, that’s says we have 0-5 years of the one year of pre-primary school, before you enter into primary school, that’s making it 6 years before you enter into primary school, you remain there in the next 6 years, making it 12 years, then you go to secondary, making it 18 years’’. He said
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The Minister who said investigations revealed that some tertiary institutions had granted admission to underaged students, however acknowledged that some children were exceptionally intelligent and the Ministry was working on a guideline to categorize and exempt them from the age limit.
‘’It was shocking to see that a university in Nigeria gave admission to children at the age of 10,11,12.
But we are also not saying that there are no exceptions, we know that we can have talented students that can have the IQ of an adult, even at the age of 6, 7 but these are very few.
For such, there must be a rule and the ministry is looking at developing a guideline on how to identify and label a child as talented, so that we can have that exception.
So that parents cannot say we have blocked the child’’ Dr. Sununu stated that the various concerns by stakeholders have been noted and would be looked into at the National Council on Education meeting.
The Minister assured Nigerians that the enforcement of the 18-year age limit into tertiary institutions was part of measures aimed at sanitizing and transforming the education sector.
