The influx of underage students in both the private and public tertiary institutions in the nation has necessitated the move for an effective regulation in the system by the concerned authority.
Following this, a lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt in the department of educational psychology, Guidance and counselling, Professor Chikwe Agbakwuru explained that minors are not psychologically fit to be in higher institutions.
“So there is no danger inherent in the pegging of higher institution admission age at eighteen and am totally in support of it.
Parents would send children of fifteen, and falsify their ages to get them into the university.
These underaged are not matured for tertiary education so they are confused”, he stated.
Speaking on the issue, a parent, Mr. Ernest Ihemeje who thought that the age of higher institution admission should be reduced to consider gifted students in a bid to encourage them.
“I will want to ask the Federal Government to consider some exceptional children.
They are brilliant and can meet-up even when they gain admission at sixteen”, he stressed.
While another parent Mrs Chioma Okonkwo supported the policy that allows only eighteen years and above to gain admission onto the tertiary institutions describing the university institutions as harmful to young minds.
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“At sixteen a child suppose to be in secondary school and from eighteen he is meant to be matured both character wise and morally”, she said.
In their responses, a student Miss Joshua Praise said early school admission would offer students the opportunity to start life in time and accompanish much in a short period.
“My personal opinion is that sixteen years should be the minimum age of admission into higher educational facilities. My reason is that there are teenagers at home who are longing to be in the university so keeping them out of it amounts to wasting of their time”, she noted.
However, another student of higher institution Mr. Dairo Japheth was of the opinion that those students who graduated from secondary schools before the age of eighteen should utilise the remaining two years to acquire skills to be more relevant in the labour market.
“If the person finished secondary school before eighteen years he can learn one or two skills because everything is not tertiary education in Nigeria,” he emphasised.
After several deliberations by the stakeholders, the Federal Ministry of Education reversed the admission age into tertiary education institutions from eighteen to sixteen and also make provision to accommodate exceptionally talented students who are under the stipulated age of sixteen.
