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The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, has got tongues wagging over his declaration that 18 years is now the minimum qualifying age for writing WAEC, NECO, and JAMB as from next year (2025). Though some applauded the Minister, majority seems to be disappointed in what they consider an unfortunate and thoughtless declaration. In his apt reaction, a Nigerian former vice president and the PDP presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, said “Tinubu government behaves like a lost sailor on a high sea.”
I personally don’t have problem with age pegging. The Minister could even set it to be 25. My problem is with our policy makers who always like to leap before they think. Why is our thinking cap always thrown away once in government, as elected or appointed officials? Why do we treat those we are meant to govern like animals, not humans? Even if Tinubu’s government rides roughshod on citizens’ rights and freedoms, and is intent on turning Nigeria to a totalitarian state, I don’t think the Minister of Education should be an accomplice to such a goal.
Can it be said that professor Mamman is unenlightened about the implications of such declaration? I doubt. But when a professor works in (or for) a regime that is drifting towards totalitarianism, we may bear the pain of trying to differentiate between professorship and enlightenment. It is difficult to think rightly as a government appointee—despite being a professor—in a regime that intrinsically has no regards for rule of law, human feelings, and sufferings of the masses. Those who are very harsh on Professor Mamman should understand that he is operating in an unfavorable environment. They should soft-pedal on the Minister of Education; small small, please!
That said, the Minister is knowledgeable enough to know that education is on the concurrent list in which governments at the state level play more roles than the federal government. Thus, such decision shouldn’t have been a unilateral one where he alone acts as the sole decision maker. Other stakeholders at the state level should have been carried along. Perhaps, they would have advised him on a better way, if not the best way, to go about it. Or is the Minister only referring to students in federal unity schools?
Like most Nigerians, I am of the opinion that the policy is dead on arrival. Like I said earlier, I don’t have problem with the age (18 years). Ideally, if a student is enrolled into primary school at age six (6), they should be writing WAEC at around age eighteen (18). I would have applauded the Minister if he had chosen to address the problem from the root. But like we say in local parlance, na today?
Na today “underage” candidates dey write WAEC and JAMB in Nigeria? Please let the “underage” breathe. What has the issue of underage, legal age, and overage got to do with taking an examination when it comes to ability? What matters is ability, not age. A twenty-five year old candidate should not qualify to write WAEC if he or she does not display ability. The simple way to display ability is to be promoted on merit to terminal class. The question now is: how do immature students who lack ability get promoted to terminal class to write WAEC? This is the corruption in our schools that the Honourable Minister should address.
The Minister should busy himself with finding out the kinds of miracles being performed in our schools such that students who apparently do not know anything taught in schools write WAEC and even pass. Is it not miraculous that students in government schools with insufficient teachers, untrained teachers, impoverished teachers, unpaid teachers, dilapidated structures, total absence of teaching facilities and libraries got promoted from primary one to SS three?
The Minister should concerned himself with why many Nigerian university graduates (not to talk of secondary school leavers) cannot write a simple sentence in any language after wasting about two decades—schooling in government schools. If it is true that there is an extant policy that pegs primary school admission age at six (6), why are schools admitting underage pupils? If it is illegal, who has been punished for the illegality?
What is more, double promotion in school isn’t an illegal practice. It is normal for students who demonstrate exceptional intelligence, extraordinary aptitude for scholarship, academic excellence, precocity and maturity to get many double promotions. Professor Mamman is well imformed about this. What would be the fate of such eggheads? Should they be withdrawn from school—if they are fourteen or fifteen years old while in the terminal class—because they must attain the legal age to write WAEC? This is waging war against the talented and the gifted. Or has it become a crime to be intellectually endowed?
Though I am aware that a bill was almost passed to criminalize inability to recite Tinubu’s Anthem; I am not aware that any bill has been passed, or about to be passed, to criminalize intelligence, brilliance, and intellectualism. If there is discipline in our schools, there wouldn’t be cases of parents pushing their underage kids to sit for WAEC and JAMB. It is the weak system that is being compromised that needs to be strengthened and infused with discipline.
Our Honorable Minister of Education should not join other lackeys of this government in chasing mirage. The ministry he heads is critical to building human capacity and national development. Rather than getting bogged down or splitting hairs in the trivial issue of age, we should focus on addressing the real problems of funding, efficiency, and discipline in the educational sector.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
