The Senate on Wednesday assured Nigerians that the 16-year age requirement for applicants seeking admissions to tertiary institutions in the country has not been changed.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Adeyemi Adaramodu, made this known in an interview with journalists, stating that the statements regarding the potential increase of the age limit to 18 years were individual viewpoints and any upward or downward adjustment to the age limit would require proper legislative procedures.
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, had last week stated that the government was thinking about changing the minimum age for entering universities to 18 years.
But speaking in the interview on Wednesday, Adaramodu said, “Comment on the minimum age requirement for admission is not a law. 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.”
