Former presidential media aide Reno Omokri has said he does not think it is a good idea to put an age limit of 18 for university admission.
Mr Omokri stated this in a post on X on Tuesday after the minister of education Prof. Tahir Mamman directed that admission to tertiary institutions should not be given to candidates below 18 years.
Mamman gave the directive on Monday during a monitoring exercise of the ongoing 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Bwari, Federal Capital Territory.
According to him, underage candidates are too young to understand what university education is all about. He added that some of them do not manage their affairs properly.
Reacting to the minister’s submission, Omokri said forcing young people to stay at home for two years until they attain the age of 18 would lead to idleness and then juvenile delinquency.
“I am not sure it is a good idea to put an age limit of eighteen for university admission. What the government of Nigeria is doing, in effect, is stifling the progress of people who graduate from secondary school at sixteen. Everybody learns at the same pace,” he wrote.
18 years is minimum age for university education – Tahir Mamman
“To force students to stay at home for two years until they attain the age of eighteen will lead to idleness, which will, in turn, result in juvenile delinquency. We will push those whose parents cannot afford to send them abroad into such social malaise as Yahoo, romance scams, cultism and acts of youthful exuberance, by forcing them to stay at home for two years, idle and with a lot of energy.
“I was admitted into the university at sixteen, and that early start helped me in later life. If we want to encourage students, we must not put any ceiling on their academic achievements due to their age.”
Omokri said it is “discriminatory and hypocritical” for the elite to have the ability to send their own children to foreign universities at 16 while preventing the middle and lower classes from enjoying the same privileges at home.
He noted that the government should be moving towards fewer regulations rather than more regulations.
“In the UK, universities set their own admission criteria, including age limits. In the U.S., there are no age limits, and you can gain admission as a child prodigy. I would encourage this administration to reconsider this approach,” Omokri said.
