Ishaq Oloyede, the registrar, and chief executive officer at the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has revealed that some Nigerian universities are abetting and endorsing underage admission of students without basic qualifications into their institutions.
Oloyede exposed the crimes and evils that are being perpetrated by some Nigerian universities when he addressed the issues of underage admission and the corruption going on in the tertiary education system.
“The University of Lagos and Obafemi Awolowo University will not accept a candidate unless you’re 16, whereas 18 is the issue, but some of the other universities will accept even students who are 10 years,” he said.
He revealed that the following institutions are culprits to underage and related admission offences; the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, University of Abuja, Imo State University, Kwara State University and Ambrose Ali University.
Oloyede revealed that over 700 students were admitted out of quota by Ambrose Ali University, which he said has caused a lot of embarrassment to the university communities.
He frowned at the fact that Nigerians are not living with realities when it comes to academic age benchmarks, which he said fuels underage admission into universities.
He cited an instance from 2017 to 2020 where over one million students were illegally admitted into various universities, which JAMB kicked against before the intervention of the education minister.
A student of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), who preferred to speak in anonymity confirmed that the institution admits below the age of 16 students provided such a candidate has connections.
“UNIBEN has a record of admitting under 16 students; there was a case of one who just graduate at age 19 for a course of four years. There was another case where one Pamela, a 14-year old girl was admitted to study laboratory science, however, she later dropped out because of unwanted pregnancy,” the student narrated.
Similarly, a student from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), said the university management does not lay much emphasis on age.
“As far as the fresh student is able to beat the school criteria which are basically WAEC, JAMB, and post UTME standard, he or she is good to go,” he said.
However, speaking from experience, he said; “I would advise if a student is not up to 16 or 18 as the case may be, he or she should use the extra years to learn a vocation or build him/herself mentally.
“A lot of things are involved in school, my first year was very crazy for me; I went through a lot of hell.”
A student from Nnamdi Azikiwe University told our reporter that there are few instances of underage admission in the school.
For the University of Jos, a student explained that for the admission backlogs, the university management does not even consider students below 16 years old.
