Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has faulted the Federal Government for the 18-year age limit on NECO and WAEC exams, calling it a barrier to scholarships.<\/p>\n
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman had announced a ban on individuals below 18 from participating in the NECO and WAEC exams.<\/p>\n
Mamman, while appearing on Channels Television\u2019s \u2018 Sunday Politics\u2019 program said that the Federal Government has instructed WAEC and NECO to enforce the 18-year age requirement for candidates taking these exams.<\/p>\n
However, the former Vice President who reacted to the development via his verified Facebook page on Wednesday, labelled the policy as controversial and called for universal condemnation from those who value intellectual freedom and accessibility.<\/p>\n
He stated: \u201cTinubu\u2019s policy on age limit for tertiary education admission belongs in the Stone Ages.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recent policy of the Federal Ministry of Education pegging age limits for entry to tertiary institutions is an absurdity and a disincentive to scholarship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe policy runs foul of the notion of delineation of responsibilities in a federal system of government such as we are practising, and gives a graphic impression of how the Tinubu government behaves like a lost sailor on a high sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cOtherwise, how is such anti-scholarship regulation the next logical step in the myriad of issues besetting our educational system?<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be clear, the Nigerian constitution puts education in the concurrent list of schedules, in which the sub-national government enjoys more roles above the Federal Government.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Vice President highlighted that the most effective global approach is to allow sub-national governments to establish their education laws or regulations.<\/p>\n
Atiku continued: \u201cTherefore, it is extra-constitutional for the federal government to legislate on education like a decree.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best global standard for such regulation is to allow the sub-national governments to make respective laws or rules on education.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is discouraging that even while announcing this obnoxious policy, the government inadvertently said it had no plan to cater to specially gifted pupils. That statement is an embarrassment to the body of intellectuals in the country because it portrays Nigeria as a country where gifted students are not appreciated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe irony here is that should the federal government play any role in education, it is to set up mechanisms that will identify and grant scholarships to gifted students not minding their ages before applying for admission into tertiary institutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis controversial policy belongs in the Stone Ages and should be roundly condemned by everyone who believes in intellectual freedom and accessibility.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has faulted the Federal Government for the 18-year age limit on NECO and WAEC exams, calling it a barrier to scholarships. The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman had announced a ban on individuals below 18 from participating in the NECO and WAEC exams. Mamman, while appearing on Channels Television\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":45973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45974,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45972\/revisions\/45974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}