Senate clarifies stance on minimum age requirement for university admission
In an ensuring clarification, the Nigerian Senate has emphasised that recent discussions surrounding potentially increasing the age limit for university admission to 18 years were merely individual opinions and not official decisions.
The Senate reiterated that any changes to the age requirements would need to follow the appropriate legislative processes, whether they involve raising or lowering the current limit.
During an interview with journalists on Wednesday, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Adeyemi Adaramodu, highlighted the importance of adhering to proper procedures in such matters.
The clarification comes after last week’s statement by Prof. Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, indicating that the government was considering adjusting the minimum age for university admission to 18 years old.
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“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.”
