The Nigerian Senate has made it clear that the statements regarding the potential increase of the age limit to 18 years were individual viewpoints.
The Senate stressed that any adjustments to the age limit would require proper legislative procedures, whether they involve lowering or raising the limit.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Adeyemi Adaramodu, made this known in an interview with journalists on Wednesday.
Recall that last week, Prof. Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, stated that the government is thinking about changing the minimum age for entering universities to 18 years old.
“Comment on the minimum age requirement for admission is not a law,” the lawmaker said.
“So it is just an opinion. It’s not a law. By the time the Senate resumes, whoever wants to bring that one out to make it a law, will now bring it and then the procedures will take place.
“You can bring whatever to the floor in form of a bill. When you bring it, there’s going to be public hearing.
“All the stakeholders will sit down and talk about it. The parents, teachers, legislators, civil society organisations, even foreign organisations.
“We will sit down and talk. Even if they say that the minimum age should be 30 or 12, we will all discuss it in an open forum. So it’s still a comment which cannot be taken to be the law.
The Senate is right. The statement credited to the Education Minister is just his thinking. The problems of educational development in Nigeria does not include the age of Jambites/undergraduates. The Minister should tackle the rot in the system first. The ministry should redesign the educational curriculum in line with the present day realities.