Education Minister insists ban on under 18 Varsity admission

“Policy target South and Middle Belt” says Yoruba group

By Omolade Adegbuyi

The ban on University admision against students under 18 years remains in force, the
Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman has said.

The implementation will now start in 2025.

However, the Minister of Education on Thursday met stiff opposition from school proprietors and academics who opposed the ban placed on students below 18 from gaining admission to Universities.

But in a statement on Thursday evening the Alliance for Yoruba Democratic Movements, (AYDM) Secretary General, Mr Popoola Ajayi said Tahir’s policy move was a calculated attempt to balance the education gap between the core North and the South and Middle-Belt.

He said there was no rationale for the unilateral decision to peg admission age to 18.

The AYDM, a coalition of 130 Pan Yoruba groups said the policy will affect students in Southern Nigeria and the Middle Belt while the core North will not suffer any consequences.

He described the new policy as “ethnic driven and orchestrated to attack the South and Middle Belt,” thereby stunt the advancement in tertiary education.

The AYDM said some 20 million young people in the South and Middle Belt would have their future detered for between three to four years because of what he called the “obnoxious policy.”

The Minister at the meeting, seeing the resistance to the policy as he planned to address stakeholders said he would wave 2024 and extend the implementation of the ban to 2025.

Stakeholders at the ongoing policy meeting of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Examination had resisted the move as discriminatory.

They largely opposed the new minimum admission age pegged at 18.

As soon as the Minister mentioned the peg to 18, the meeting witnessed stiff resistance.

The Minister then asked “Are we together?”

The stakeholders had responded with a chorus “No!”

The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede intervened to restore order.

Oloyede said, “At the time they (candidates) were taking the examinations, they were not aware. So if we want to enforce it then it should be for subsequent years.”

The AYDM said it was surprised that such a policy could be implemented in a Federation where development is not expected to be even.

He described the policy as “Educational genocide targeting Nigeria Southern and Middle Belt.”