Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman, has waved the 18 years benchmark for admission into tertiary institutions.

At an ongoing policy meeting organised by the Joint Admission Matriculations Board (JAMB) in Abuja, Mamman had announced that only applicants who were 18 years and above were eligible for admission.

This had sparked a controversy as stakeholders across tertiary institutions in the country, kicked against what the minister said.

Immediately after Mamman made the utterance, the hall erupted in rowdiness.

In a move to calm frayed nerves, the Minister had asked, “Are we together?”, to which the attendees chorused “No!”

It took the intervention of JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, before normalcy was restored.

While reacting to the grumblings from the participants, he insisted that the law required that their children should be in school at 18 years, having attended six years in primary school, three years in Junior Secondary School and three years in senior secondary school.

The Minister noted that the meeting was to ensure that the process of admission for 2024/2024 was fair.

He said the position of the Federal Ministry of Education had not changed from any institution that does admission outside the right process, which is Central Application Process (CAP).

One of the participants who did not want to be named said: “That is not possible, how can a child finish school write WAEC and JAMB and passed and you deny him admission?”

But the minister later accepted the suggestions of the stakeholders that from 16 years and above should be eligible for this year’s admission while the law would apply from next year.