Senate maintains minimum age requirement for admission into higher institutions

The statements on raising the age limit to 18 years old were clearly the opinions of specific senators in Nigeria. Whether decreasing or raising the age limit, the Senate emphasised that any changes would need to go through the correct legislative channels. 

Adeyemi Adaramodu, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, revealed this to reporters on Wednesday. 

Recall that the government is considering raising the entrance age to 18 years old, as announced by Education Minister Prof. Tahir Mamman last week.

“Comment on the minimum age requirement for admission is not a law,” the lawmaker said.

“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.”

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