‘In a move to calm frayed nerves, the Minister had asked, “Are we together?” to which the attendees chorused “No!”‘ Inside the tensed meeting where Mamman made a u-turn
Candidates who are 16 years old would be considered for admission into tertiary institutions for the 2024 academic year.
Platforms Africa reports that this came as drama greeted a stakeholder meeting where the minister earlier announced 18 as the admission age fir undergraduate.
Stakeholders and attendees at the ongoing policy meeting of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), had protested as the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, declared that only candidates who have attained the age of 18 would henceforth be given admission into tertiary institutions in the country.
The JAMB policy meeting is an annual event where stakeholders from the various tertiary institutions in the country sit to decide on appropriate cut-off marks for admissions in the current academic year.
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The meeting also sets the tone for the year’s admission exercise and guidelines by which all institutions must admit students.
At the ongoing meeting, immediately after Mamman made the utterance saying only applicants who were 18 years and above were eligible for admission, the hall erupted in rowdiness.
In a move to calm frayed nerves, the Minister had asked, “Are we together?” to which the attendees chorused “No!”
It took the intervention of JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, before normalcy was restored.
While reacting to the grumblings from the participants, he insisted that the law required that their children should be in school at 18 years, having attended six years in primary school, three years in Junior Secondary School, and three years in senior secondary school.
The Minister noted that the meeting was to ensure that the process of admission for 2024/2024 was fair.
He said the position of the Federal Ministry of Education had not changed from any institution that does admission outside the right process, which is the Central Application Process (CAP).
But the minister later accepted the suggestions of the stakeholders that those from 16 years and above should be eligible for this year’s admission while the law would apply from next year.
