Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has said it is illegal for tertiary institutions to give admission to underage.
Oloyede who made the assertion at the opening of the seventh biennial conference of Committee of Pro-Chancellors of State-Owned Universities in Nigeria on Tuesday in Lagos, said this needed to be aborted and warned tertiary institutions especially universities to stop admissions of underaged
The Theme of the conference was: “Effective University Governance: Role of Stakeholders”.
He said for the sake of accountability, data protection and integrity of the nation, this act needed to stop because anything that was irregular was illegal..
“About two months ago, I received a letter from an European country to confirm if a student actually graduated from a particular university because she is 15 years old and applied for a postgraduate course.
“They question they asked me is “Is this possible in Nigeria?
“I had to call the Vice Chancellor of the institution and he confirmed the student graduated from the university but was not admitted by JAMB.
“He had to include that he was not the VC at the time the student was admitted,” Oloyede said.
He said state-owned universities must do a lot on this situation because they constituted more in number than federal universities.
“Also illegal admission of diploma students needs to stop because last year, we admitted 9,000 diploma students; I was alarmed that about 3,000 students came from a particular university.
“Everyone of us should be accountable because all these acts can damage our education system,” Oloyede said.
