The Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman, has said government will review the entry age of candidates into university to 18 years.
Mamman, who noted that some candidates who have applied to go to university were too young, said government was going to look into it as the candidates were too young to understand what the university education is all about.
The minister spoke in Bwari, Abuja while monitoring the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, on Monday.
“That’s the stage when students migrate from a controlled environment where they are in charge of their own affairs. So if they are too young, they won’t be able to manage properly. That accounts to 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, 16, going to the examination. It is not good for us. Parents should be encouraged not to push their wards, children too much,” he said.
Speaking on the conduct of the exercise, he said the examination process was seamless, adding that the environment was also comfortable for students.
Mamman lauded the deployment of technology in the educational system as the UTME exercise was monitored everywhere seamlessly.
The minister said from the reports he received, examination malpractice reduced drastically to just a 100 out of the 1.2m, while attributing the achievement to the use of technology.
On the only 20 per cent of candidates that may eventually be admitted into universities, polytechnics and colleges of education because of limited access, the minister said “any student who is not able to proceed to tertiary institution, should be able to have a meaningful life even after secondary school, even primary education.
“The only solution to that is skills; by taking skills right from the time they entered school, for the primary right through the educational trajectory. Somebody should finish with one skill or another.”
Earlier, while monitoring the UTME at JAMB centre in Kogo, Bwari Abuja, the Minister of State for Education, Hon Yusuf Sununu, praises JAMB for the smooth conduct of the examination and efforts at reducing or eliminating examination malpractice.
Sununu said “One of the major things I see here, which is a major characteristic of online exam, is the speed. The speed in the centre is really excellent one, pages are turned as at when candidates need them without any delay of booting..
“Also in the exam, there are lots of steps to prevent examination malpractice, candidates that are adjacent will be taking different subjects and even when you are answering same questions, question number one will be different from question number two from the next person.”
