Beyond age limit

 A policy initiative by government has never been more knee-jerk. That, perhaps, is why government has found itself stuck in equivocation in the narrative being plied to justify the policy to Nigerians.

Education Minister Tahir Mamman lately restated government’s resolve to bar pupils under 18 years from sitting the secondary school leaving certificate examinations, which are a prerequisite for proceeding to the tertiary level. He said pupils would henceforth not be permitted to sit the West African Senior School Certificate Examination organised by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the Senior School Certificate Examination organised by the National Examination Council (NECO) unless they attain that age. And since these are primary requirements for advancing to the tertiary level of education, it follows that any candidate sitting the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) cannot be below 18.

Speaking at a media briefing by top government officials preparatory to the October 1 Independence anniversary, the minister accused parents of rushing the education of their children and said government would enforce extant laws prescribing respective duration of primary and secondary education in this country. “Our laws, the Universal Basic Education Act and the Minimum Standards Policy Act established in 1993, prescribe specific age limits and provisions for every level of education: six years in primary school, three years in junior secondary school, three years in senior secondary school, and then five to six years before primary school. A child is expected to enter school at the age of six,” Mamman stated. “But what has been happening is that parents have been in a hurry. They frog-jump their children: get them into school at the age of four, skip level six at primary school and level six at secondary school. So, the children finish quite too young,” he added.

But government, according to him, has introduced a new curriculum giving effect to applicable laws. He made clear, though, that the present administration isn’t the author of those laws. “This is an Act that was established in 1993. The 6-3-3-4 came into being around 1982. So, this is already a very, very old policy. All that the Minister of Education did is say: ‘Ok, we come back to implementing these policies so that students can remain in school and learn skills so that when they finish, they will be able to be engaged productively; even if they don’t go to college of education or universities, they will have skills that they can be employed with or be even self-employed’,” he said, stressing that the ministry was only implementing already existing laws and not introducing new ones as being speculated.

Mamman’s latest pitch merely intensified the case he had been pushing since earlier this year. Sometime in July, at a meeting with JAMB and other education stakeholders, he notified the examination body of an immediate ban on under-18s from seeking admission into tertiary institutions. “It doesn’t require a statement from the minister… we are only restating what is in the law,” he had said. Following a slew of criticism that the policy elicited, as some 16 and 17-year-olds had already sat the 2024 cohort of UTME and had passed, the minister recalibrated his directive and permitted candidates from 16 years to be admitted into university until 2025. He returned in August on national television to restate the policy, insisting there is no going back. “It is 18 (years). What we did at the meeting that we had with JAMB (in July) was to allow this year and for it to serve as a kind of notice for parents that this year, JAMB will admit students who are below that age but from next year, JAMB is going to insist that anybody applying to go to university in Nigeria meets the required age, which is 18,” he said.

The minister also left no room for doubt as to how the policy applies to candidates sitting the school certificate leaving examinations. “We are not coming up with a new policy, contrary to what some people are saying, we are simply reminding people of what is existing. In any case, NECO and WAEC, henceforth, will not be allowing underage children to write their examinations. In other words, if somebody has not spent the requisite number of years in that particular level of study, WAEC and NECO will not allow them to write the examination.”

“Education is not just about the years, but about content.”

 

Those were Mamman’s words in August. So, you wonder if there was some miscommunication when Minister of State for Education Yussuf Sununu, early in September, denied that government had imposed age restriction on candidates sitting the secondary school leaving certificate examinations and said he found it disappointing that the minister was misreported. Fielding questions from journalists at an event commemorating the International Literacy Day, Sununu said what Mamman spoke about  was widespread abuse of the 6-3-3-4 system as reflected in the ages at which some pupils get into the tertiary level of education. “We have agreed that we are going to consider it as work-in-progress. The National Assembly is working and we are also working,” he said inter alia, adding: “Nobody said no child will write WAEC, NECO or any other examination unless at age 18. This is a misconception and misrepresentation of what we have said.” Well, that is hoping he himself was not misreported, because Mamman’s latest outing gives the lie to his intended clarification of the policy. 

Never mind conflicting codes coming out of the Education house, the policy is for real and has its supporters and naysayers. Supporters argue that early education syndrome has seen secondary schools populated by pupils barely above kindergarten age and universities by mid-teenagers who are ill-equipped for the relatively independent life at that level, hence are easily susceptible to recruitment into vices like cults and cybercrimes. It is also argued that there might be a link between underage schooling and the poor standard of education in Nigeria today.

Still, it appears government hasn’t thought through why parents rush the education of their children and what to do about it. That is besides negative implications of imposing an arbitrary delay on the age at which pupils can sit the school leaving certificate examination, which could be possible reasons why the extant laws were observed in breach in the first place. Experience has shown that many parents rush their children in their schooling because of the ecosystem of Nigerian education. Many pupils make the credits required to proceed to tertiary education level only after many attempts – true, only two of the results can be combined in seeking admission – and some parents apparently would want to make allowance for such eventuality as would enable their children to yet enter university in good time. Now that pupils can’t begin the attempts till they attain 18 years, some could be at it by age 20 and would be yet to get lucky. And it could be worse with the UTME where some pupils also make repeated attempts before they clinch admission. Unlike the school leaving certificate examinations that have multiple alternatives to be attempted within a single year, the matriculation examination is a yearly event and any failed attempt in a particular year automatically defers a candidate’s hope to another year. With repeated attempts from age 18 at secondary school leaving certificate examinations and the UTME, an unlucky pupil could be chasing admission into tertiary education until age 22 or 23.

Meanwhile, tertiary education in Nigeria – especially in public institutions where the staff are unionised – is never a smooth-sailing experience where you can guarantee a four-year course to take no longer than four years. Hence, a student on a four-year course could last six to seven years in school without being responsible for the delay – what with repeated strikes by staff unions that government does little to avert or rein in after-the-fact. When you combine all the delays, a student could be notching 30 years of age before getting through first degree education. And to compound matters, the Nigerian labour market has become one where first degree qualification isn’t sufficient to enter without additional certifications. So, at what age can parents hope to see their children settled in the labour market and relieve them of dependence? For the female child, the matter is further complicated by societal values. An average parent would want to make room for all necessary certifications and career pursuit by their girls before they attain the age of full responsibility, like societal expectation that they get married within a certain age range.

If the new curriculum is all about giving effect to age delineations, government needs be aware that it is not the years spent but what is learnt/learnable that defines education. In China, pupils learn artisanship and technical skills from kindergarten. Education is not just about the years, but about content.