The Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), Prof Ishaq Oloyede has disclosed that “exceptional” students below the age of 16 can register for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) as the board had opened the Exceptionally Brilliant Window for such candidates.
He noted that while the examination body had enforced the minimum age requirement for any students into tertiary institutions at 16, the need for below-16s to sit for the UTME was necessitated by the number of rare, exceptional students.
Oloyede, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, stated this as a guest on the Sunday edition of a socio-political programme, Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, on Channels Television.
“In Nigeria, there are many brilliant students, we have so many excellent people. We are enforcing the 16-year minimum entry into tertiary institutions but some people are saying there are exceptional students. Yes, there are exceptional students but they are just one in a million.
“We are saying 16 years is the minimum but if you know you are exceptional, register for exceptional candidacy–that is you are less than 16 years old and exceptional,” he said.
The JAMB registrar equally condemned how some parents now raise the ages of their children.
He cited a case in which students between the ages of 10 to 12 had been registered for the UTME.
“I’m surprised, just from Monday to now, over 2,000 have registered in the whole country. Some of them are 10, 11, and 12-year-olds whose parents have found crooked ways of jumping classes.
“Normal children cannot grow at a rate higher than their biological age. What parents are now doing is increasing the age of their children, they are doing everything, affidavit of age and everything.
“The parents want to use the children to decorate their CVs. They want to say I am the mother of a lawyer, my child graduated at age 13,” Oloyede lamented.
In November 2024, the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa announced the reversal of the 18-year admission benchmark for tertiary institutions to 16 years.
“We will not be going forward with the 18-year admission benchmark. We will go with 16 years and we are going to meet with the Joint Admission Matriculation Board and others on that.
“There will also be exceptions for gifted students. So, 18 years is not part of our policy again,” he said.
The former Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman, in July 2024, announced a ban on admissions for candidates under the age of 18 into tertiary institutions in the country.
The PUNCH
