A retired don at the University of Ibadan (UI), Prof Ademola Dasylva, has called for the reintroduction of Higher School Certificate (HSC) or A Level programme for candidates to attain the age of 18 years before seeking admission into the universities and other tertiary institutions of learning.
This is as he said the government should bring back, and resuscitate the Higher School Certificate (HSC), the middle-level tier of education, as a stop-gap to further engender the intellectual maturity of the child, preparatory to the university education.
Again, Dasylva, who insisted that Nigeria does not need American or British examples to gauge or determine what is good for us and our children, pointed out that environment, parental genetics, parental input, and general background of a child could more than fast-track the cognitive, emotional and social maturity of a child, which although vary from child to child.
“Therefore, nothing stops a child from sitting for and passing the WASSCE or NECO by age 16 years. The question is what does he or she have to do before attaining 18 years to qualify for university education?” he argued.
On normal child whose environment and nature have sufficiently prepared to cope with both informal and formal education, he said adequate provisions should be made available to cater for this category of children, who could not go for the A/L or HSC programme to obtain higher certificate by the time he attains the age of 18 years.
Rather than restraining children less than 18 years from sitting for the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate (WASSCE) and National Examinations Council (NECO), a former Professor at the University of Ibadan (UI), a policy which the Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman has reversed, he stated that the age-limit entry policy said to be about 40 years old, must be resisted and reversed to pace way for current realities.
This is as the retired Professor of African and Oral Literatures at the Department of English of the university noted that whatever was the law that defined and determined age-limit to the different educational entry points of those days might need an urgent review or revision, saying such laws and regulations must be seen to be responsive to these realities.
He, however, hinted that since subsequent Ministers of Education lacked the temerity to implement the policy, the Minister under the current administration of President Bola Tinubu, seized on the tough times that have distracted the masses to smuggle in the policy file, which must have gathered sufficient dust.
Curiously, the retired don, however, urged the Minister to revisit the implementation of the 6-3-3-4 education policy/structure, stressing that such a move would help to determine those who need to acquire technical education and those who are potential university, polytechnic and colleges of education students or products.