Nigerian Parents Should Stop Pushing Their Underage Students To The University – Prof. Tahir Mamman

The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman has come out to say that the Federal Government is considering the adoption of 18 years as the entry age for admission into universities and other tertiary institutions of learning.

He recently had his say while monitoring the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in Abuja, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, underage students are responsible for some of the problems being encountered in higher institutions, and parents should guard against pushing their children and wards to the university, instead of allowing them to attain some level of maturity to be able to better manage their affairs.

He added that some students are simply too young to be applying for university education in Nigeria.

His words, “The other thing which we notice is the age of those who have applied to go to the university. Some of them are too young. We are going to look at it because they are too young to understand what a university education is all about.

That’s the stage when students migrate from a controlled environment where they are in charge of their affairs. So if they are too young, they won’t be able to manage properly. That accounts for some of the problems we are seeing in the universities.

We are going to look at that. 18 is the entry age for university but you will see students, 15, and 16, going to the examination. It is not good for us. Parents should be encouraged not to push their wards, or children too much.

Right from screening to those who are here…the examination process is seamless. The environment is comfortable for students. That’s how it should be, especially the use of technology in our affairs and the educational system. It makes life easy for everybody and seamless.

As we know this examination is going on throughout the country. It is being monitored everywhere seamlessly and from the report I have heard, the malpractice level is very low. Just a 100 out of the 1.2m. It has gone down drastically and believe that it is the use of technology that has made that happen so this is very good.”