It is a good thing that government is recalibrating its age policy on transition by pupils from secondary to tertiary level of education. But it should do so by honest acknowledgement of having a rethink in concession to persuasive arguments by stakeholders, which is a mark of sensitivity in leadership, and not by asserting self-infallibility while guilt-tripping everybody else.
Education Minister of State, Dr. Yusuf Sununu, walked the pompous road of arrogated infallibility last week when he denied government ever said pupils under age 18 would be barred from writing the senior secondary school leaving certificate examinations conducted respectively by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO). Speaking in Abuja at an event to mark the 2024 International Literacy Day (ILD) on Friday, Sununu said the notion owed to public misconception and misinterpretation of what Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, said , which he found highly disappointing.
What Mamman spoke about, according to Sununu, was widespread abuse of the 6-3-3-4 system as reflected in the ages at which some pupils get into the tertiary level of education. “We have agreed that we are going to consider it as work-in-progress. The National Assembly is working and we are also working. It was shocking to say that a university in this country gave admission to children at ages 10, 11 and 12 years. This is totally wrong,” he said. “We are not saying that there are no exceptions, we know we can have talented students that have the IQ of an adult even at age 6 and 7, but these are very few. There must be a rule, and the ministry is looking at developing a guideline on how to identify a talented child, so that parents don’t say we are blocking their children’s chances,” the minister of state added.
Read Also: Community raises the alarm over alleged gas leak from Kaduna refinery
And the punchline, in Sununu’s words: “Nobody said no child will write WAEC, NECO or any other examination unless at age 18. This is a misconception and misrepresentation of what we have said.” But is it, really?
When the senior minister spoke on national television less than two weeks earlier, he said government had only now resolved to enforce a long existing policy by which any pupil shouldn’t be less than 17 and half years before they conclude secondary education before being ready for admission to the tertiary level. “In any case, NECO and WAEC, henceforth, will not be allowing underage children to write their examinations. In other words, if somebody has not spent the requisite number of years in that particular level of study, WAEC and NECO will not allow them to write the examination,” were his exact words. So, where is the misrepresentation?
It is noble, not humbling to stoop to pressure. Mr. Minister shouldn’t take from that.