Members of the National Assembly have confirmed that the minimum age requirement of 16 years for admission into universities will remain unchanged.
The red chamber stressed that the statements regarding the potential increase of the age limit to 18 years were individual viewpoints. The upper chamber made it clear that any adjustments to the age limit would require proper legislative procedures, whether they involve lowering or raising the limit.
In an interview with journalists yesterday, Adeyemi Adaramodu, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, provided a clarification.
Last week, Prof. Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, mentioned that the government is thinking about changing the minimum age for entering universities to 18 years old.
Sen. Adaramodu said, “comment on the minimum age requirement for admission is not a law. 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 we talk. Even if they say that the minimum age should be 30 or 12 we will all discuss it at an open forum. So it’s still a comment which cannot be taken to be the law.”
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