The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that exceptionally gifted students below the age of 16 can now register for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) through a special waiver.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, made this known while speaking on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande on Channels Television. He emphasized that while the board maintains the minimum age requirement of 16 for admission into tertiary institutions, an Exceptionally Brilliant Window has been created for rare cases of outstanding students.
“In Nigeria, we have many brilliant students. We are enforcing the 16-year minimum entry into tertiary institutions, but there are exceptional cases. Though rare perhaps one in a million-we have provided a special registration process for such candidates,” Oloyede said.
He also criticized the growing trend of parents falsifying their children’s ages to fast-track their education. He revealed that over 2,000 underage candidates, some as young as 10, had already registered for the UTME, often with manipulated birth records.
“Some parents now falsify their children’s ages just to brag that their child graduated at 13. Normal children do not grow faster than their biological age”, he added.
This development follows the federal government’s decision to maintain the 16-year minimum admission age, reversing an earlier policy that set it at 18. In November 2024, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, reaffirmed the 16-year benchmark while allowing exceptions for gifted students.
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