Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president, has criticised the federal government for enacting a law that forbids anyone under the age of 18 from applying for admission to universities.
Cited on his social media account (Facebook) that’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration is acting like a lost sailor on a high seas.
Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, has emphasized the system’s minimum age requirement for students, stating that students under 18 are not eligible for the entrance examination.
It is important to advise parents not to overburden their children. Parents’ pressure is the main factor behind this. The reason we are examining this development is that the candidates are too young to fully comprehend the purpose of a university degree. At this age, youngsters transition from a controlled to an uncontrolled environment and learn to manage their own affairs. They won’t be able to manage well, though, if they are too young. I believe it is a component of what is going on at today’s universities.
Atiku, however, responded to his remarks by saying that the Federal Ministry of Education’s new policy of tying admissions to postsecondary institutions to age limits was ridiculous and discouraged scholarly pursuits. He claims that the policy “gives a graphic impression of how the Tinubu government behaves like a lost sailor on a high seas and runs foul of the notion of delineation of responsibilities in a federal system of government such as we are practising.” Otherwise, given the plethora of problems plaguing our educational system, how is an anti-scholarship policy like this the next logical step?
It is important to note that the Nigerian constitution places education on the concurrent list of schedules, giving the sub-national government more authority than the federal government. Therefore, the federal government’s ability to enact laws pertaining to education in a way that resembles decrees is extra-constitutional. “Letting subnational governments enact appropriate laws or regulations regarding education is the greatest worldwide standard for such regulation. It is disheartening that the administration unintentionally stated it had no plans to accommodate exceptionally talented students even as it unveiled this offensive policy. The statement presents Nigeria as a place where talented students are not valued, which is embarrassing to the intellectual community in the nation.
The irony here is that, should the federal government be involved in education at all, it should be to establish systems for identifying and awarding scholarships to exceptionally talented individuals who do not care about their age at the time of application for postsecondary study.
Atiku declared that everyone who values accessibility and intellectual freedom should vehemently denounce this divisive policy, which belongs in the Stone Ages.
