The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Wednesday kicked against the registration of minors in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), News About Nigeria reports.
While cautioning parents and guardians against enrolling minors, the examination body noted that the acceptable age for writing the examination is 18.
In a statement released by the Board’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, the Registrar of JAMB, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, gave the warning in response to a suit filed by one Mrs Ifeanyi Eke against the Board over alleged inappropriate text messages sent to her 15-year-old daughter during her registration.
The woman had filed a N100m suit against JAMB and three others before the Federal High Court in Lagos over alleged unsolicited and inappropriate text messages sent to her 15-year-old daughter by the person working in the centre where she registered her JAMB examination.
Reacting to the incident, Oloyede noted that the sender of the message was not the Board’s staff.
The Registrar also added that they are ready to meet with Eke in court because she is the one against the law.
In his own words, “The person is not our staff, he is not even a staff of the centre, he is a co-student. He is just like a candidate, an undergraduate in one of the universities. And talking about our data, nobody has access to our data. The person got the information from the phone of the underage girl. How did your girl of 15 years get ready for university now? If she is law-abiding as she claimed.
“The law today is that you must spend six years before primary school, six years in primary school and six years in secondary school. By that time, you are 18. But when you reduce three years, you must have cut corners to make a 15-year-old child ready for university education. We will meet her in court, it is for the court to decide whether she deserves that money.”
The JAMB boss also revealed that the centre has been dealt with accordingly for breaching it’s guidelines by allowing unauthorised persons into its centre.
He further revealed that parents are not permitted to be with their children during registration and any centre found wanting on this would be punished accordingly.
