September 01, (THEWILL) – The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman has stirred an unnecessary controversy among stakeholders with his policy on age brackets for students sitting for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Examination, JAMB and by implication, the final examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, and the local National Examination Council, NECO.
According to the minister, who also said that the National Examinations Council, NECO, and the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, would not allow “under aged” students to write their examination, the education policy on JAMB is an old one. He is merely enforcing it.
Still, ‘’ underage,’’ in this context means 17 and a half years, according to the Mamman’s calculation.
“Even basically, if you compute the number of years, pupils, and learners are supposed to be in school, the number you will end up with is 17 and a half-from early child care to primary school to junior secondary school to senior secondary…” Minster Mamman said.
If the current policy on education that Prof Mamman insists he is enforcing is old, that would obviously be the current 6-3-3-4 policy initiated by one-time education Minister, Professor Jubril Aminu in the 1980s. That is more than a generation ago. The dynamics have changed and so many things have evolved since then. We are in the age of technology, ICT and AI, when information/communication moves with the speed of light, thereby boosting the intellectual capacity across age groups; “under age,” children are so digitally compliant they can make use of computers, remote controls and manipulate phone functions without assistance.
In fact, when added up, the 6-3-3-4 system gives 16 years, which is currently the admission age bracket for entrance into tertiary education.
Indeed, when it is considered that the Federal Government has a school for gifted children in Suleja, Niger State, it is easy to see that this policy is retrogressive.
That school, Federal Government Academy in Suleja for gifted and talented children, admits only children below age 11.
In the context of that critical section of the stipulated criterion, we can infer that even an eight-year old might sit for the examination. Let us even assume that a 10-year old sat for the examination, that means they would be 16 by graduation from Senior Secondary School, meaning they would have to wait for another two years to meet the education minister’s policy.
What would these otherwise gifted and talented children be doing at home during the two years? Sports betting? Yahooing? Or simply lazing around? All of which are counter-productive to learning. The thinking that only 18 years and above are socially mature is mistaken.
At any rate, it is well known and it has been stated by educationists that in this matter under consideration maturity can be defined in physical, emotional and intellectual terms. The digital world has proven this to be true. And this expert advice on intellectual maturity would have formed the basis for the setting up of the Suleja academy.
By the way, is it not the same ministry that classified children as gifted and exceptional and recommended the Suleja school? Or don’t they have an education psychologist there any longer?
It is our considered opinion that the major challenges negatively impacting education in the country have nothing to do with the age of the average student but deficiencies in infrastructure, welfare of teachers and the curricula that make education “what each generation gives to its younger ones, which makes them to develop attitudes, abilities, skills and other behaviours that are of positive value to the society in which they live,” according to the father of Nigeria education, late Professor Babs Fafunwa, a former Minister of Education.
Stakeholders ranging from the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, to the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP and proprietors of colleges like American University in Yola, Adamawa State, Atiku Abubakar, have kicked against it on the ground that the ability of the student rather than age should be key to sitting for an examination, particularly in this digital age.
It is our considered opinion that if the 6-3-3-4 system, as it is currently being operated, continues, the two -year pause may be detrimental to the students who finishes at 16 and has to be made to waste two good years away for the sake of enforcing a policy that would succeed only in stunting and retarding the educational growth of the future leaders of Nigeria.
