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Former President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has criticised President Bola Tinubu over his government’s policy banning under 18 candidates from participating in the National Examinations Council (NECO), and the West Africa Examinations Council (WAEC) exams.
This policy implies that underage candidates will no longer be allowed to sit for the senior school certificate examinations conducted by NECO and WAEC.
When he recently appeared on Channels Television’s ‘Sunday Politics’, the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, said the exam bodies have been directed to enforce the age requirement for candidates writing their exams.
Reacting to the development, Atiku described the policy as absurd, saying it belongs to the stone ages.
In a statement on Wednesday, August 28, 2024, the former Vice President said pegging age limits for entry to tertiary institutions is inimical to scholarship.
Atiku also faulted the policy, saying it “runs foul of the notion of delineation of responsibilities in a federal system of government,” adding that President Tinubu’s government “behaves like a lost sailor on a high sea.”
He wondered how the “anti-scholarship regulation” is the right step to solving “the myriad of issues besetting our educational system,” stressing that the Federal Government has no business regulating and legislating on education which is on the concurrent list in the Constitution.
The statement read in part, “To 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.
“Therefore, it is extra-constitutional for the federal government to legislate on education in a manner similar to a decree. The best global standard for such regulation is to allow the sub-national governments to make respective laws or rules on education.
“It is discouraging that even while announcing this obnoxious policy, the government inadvertently said it had no plan to cater for 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.”
Atiku concluded that the policy should be condemned by all Nigerians who believe in intellectual freedom and accessibility.