The Chancellor of Afe Babalola College, Ado Ekiti, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, has faulted the Federal Authorities’s choice to bar college students below 18 from writing examinations carried out by the West African Examination Council and Nationwide Examination Council and as nicely gaining admission to universities within the nation.
Afe Babalola, who mentioned that the brand new coverage was unacceptable and retrogressive, cautioned the federal government in opposition to utilizing its insurance policies to retard progress and pursuit of younger residents who would offer options to a myriad of challenges confronting the nation.
The ABUAD founder, whereas talking in Ado Ekiti on Thursday in response to the coverage, mentioned, “I’m not shocked that no Nigerian was named among the many younger achievers on this planet. It’s because there are strategic insurance policies that droop the laudable achievements of sensible younger minds until later ages. The proof of this assertion is throughout us.
“You don’t simply exit as a Minister of Training to direct universities in opposition to the college’s autonomy as to who to confess or who to not admit. The college should resolve to train its discretion and you may’t take that discretion from them”.
Recall that the Minister of Training, Prof. Tahir Mamman, had in a latest tv interview reiterated the federal authorities’s coverage banning college students below the age of 18 from enrolling for examinations that might assure them entry to greater schooling.
Tahir had mentioned the apex authorities had directed WAEC and NECO to stick to the 18-year age restrict directive for each candidate to be admitted to the 2 examinations and insisting that the age restrict for admission to a Nigerian college stays 18 years.
However Babalola mentioned, “Having a minimal age of admission into the tertiary establishment rule that permits for no exception is a problematic place that can in the long term have an effect on the goals of the youthful generations.
“To me, the difficulty of age is a matter of discretion for the college and let me say that we have now been doing it right here. We’ve got college students who got here to ABUAD at 15 and graduated with First-class on the age of 19 and we’ll proceed to do it.
“We don’t forge with our personal arms the chain that can hamper the event of our gifted youngsters. The minimal age requirement must also give universities the discretion to confess youngsters under the age of 16 who’re endowed with distinctive capability.
“College autonomy contains amongst different issues the discretion to waive the minimal age necessities for college kids who cross the minimal admission necessities and possess distinctive tutorial potentials. That is as obtainable within the UK, Australia, Norway and South Korea.
“It shouldn’t be throughout the competence of the Federal Authorities to direct that college students of sure ages are disqualified from coming into into tertiary establishments after they’ve met all different admission necessities.
The ABUAD Chancellor quoted the American psychologist, Elaine Aaron, to have as soon as mentioned ‘What may we’d like extra proper now than individuals who think twice, really feel deeply, discover the refined particulars, and find yourself having the massive image?’
Babalola added that “these 4 qualities are important to nation-building. Age will not be certainly one of them, neither is it a requirement to acquire any of them. Maturity will not be a perform of age. Quite, it’s a perform of the mindset, emotional intelligence, and the flexibility to grasp oneself and the world.
“Maturity is earned from coaching the thoughts, not from ageing. Consequently, we have now many adults who’re all however mature in the way in which they assume, act, or relate with others and the world they stay in. Conversely, we have now youngsters who’ve defied all odds and achieved even the seemingly unimaginable,” the elder statesman mentioned.