By Gabriel Dike
The National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN) on Thursday outrightly rejected the Federal Government decision to peg age limit of 18 years from next year for candidates seeking admissions into the universities.
In his swift reaction, the Deputy National President, Chief Adeolu Ogunbanjo, asked: ‘’how can a minister approve such a policy in this digital age. This decision will set us backward for another 50 year.”
Adeolu described the decision as unprogressive and not in tune with modern age when we have professors at nine in India and that is why they are progressing.
“This is not tolerable in Nigeria of today, judging from what education is saying World over. Why do government say by 18 year that is when our children will enter the university.
“The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman should reverse the decision. It is unacceptable to Nigerian parents. Thank God, it is not a law. We will take our position to the National Assembly. This decision will set our children backward, “ Ogunbanjo stated.
In his submission titled: “The 18 years age limit for admission: Leaving leprosy and confronting ringworm’’, the Coordinator of Lagos Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Adelaja Odukoya, advised the Federal Government to leave admission matter for the universities and face more important issue of the welfare of academies and make the universities globally competitive as against mostly glorified secondary schools majority have become.
He said it is historical and unpardonable tragedy that rather than frontally addressing the myriad of problems confronting education in general and university education in particular, in Nigeria, the government is busy chasing shadows and waiting its energies on denying young Nigerians access to university education in the pretext of being underaged.
His words: “If anything this unfortunate, oppressive and ill-digested policy is evidence of the lack of deep and critical thinking informing public policy in the country particularly as it affect the all-important education section that is presently comatose in urgent need of a new lease of life.
“The crisis of our public university, which this government continues to treat with indifference, is a time bomb, which will sooner than expose in the face of all. It is sad and shameful that a government that campaigned and was voted to power based on a mantra of “renewed hope” is busy promoting and entrenching hopelessness on its intelligentsia who are being bureaucratically terrorized and psychologically humiliated through the refusal to sign and conclude the renegotiated 2009 ASUU-FGN as well as the denial of three and half months outstanding salaries from the government induced strike.”
According to him, most of the children of government officials who abandoned our public universities to study abroad are same age with those to be denied admission, adding, “as it stands, the government is fast becoming the undisputed undertaker of university education in Nigeria.”
The President of Association for Formidable Educational Development (AFED), Mr. Emmanuel Orji, said restricting the age limit to 18 for university admission in Nigeria have several benefits, which include maturity and readiness to handle the academic and social demands of university life.
Others are better focus, reduced stress, improved social skills, increased independence, enhanced academic preparation, reduced dropout rates, alignment with global standards, protection from exploitation and improved university experience.
He explained that these benefits assume that the restriction is implemented with proper support systems and considerations for exceptional cases.
The Coordinator of Citizenship Civil Awareness Centre, Comrade Adeola Soetan in his reaction, titled: “JAMB again? Please don’t stop our brilliant children’’, advised the board not to ban, now or in the future, underaged (18) candidates from university admission.
He asked: “Why stopping young, brilliant, sharp candidates when there’s space consideration for the “Olodos” called “disadvantaged students”. What’s good for the goose must be good for the gander.
Please let these young guys unleash their positive energies as university students (scholars) before they are unnecessarily diverted. If there’s no enough space in the university system, I suggest these young and genuinely brilliant candidates should be considered first before others.
Life is a race, no serious nation in this technology driven jet age of genius discovery, will withhold its fastest runner in order for its slowest runners to catch up with the fastest runners. That will be counter productive to individual and national development. You measure a nation’s projected future development more by the capacity of its youth (geniuses) than by the dwindling capacity of its outgoing “old cargo” no matter their experience.”
Soetan disclosed that in our various homes today, young children have become masters in operating into details, our telephones, television sets, cameras, and laptops, which parents used money to buy, “in fast to understand, reading skills, diction, phonetics, many of our young brilliant children are ahead of us. So why stopping them but to guide them and “stylishly” learn from them?
He revealed that Lionel Messi started his football career at age 4 and shortly after at the age of six, he joined Newell’s Old Boys, a team he had supported throughout his childhood. The whole world can see the benefits and good sense in that as the world greatest footballers winning all the winnable.
Soetan called on JAMB and government not to stop the genuinely extraordinary brilliant children and stated that the university, the world and our future belong to them.