Maturity Over Brilliance: JAMB Justifies Age Benchmark
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has restated its commitment to the 16-year minimum age requirement for admission into tertiary institutions, insisting that the policy rests on existing education laws and on evidence linking maturity to academic success.
The board’s Public Communication Adviser, Dr Fabian Benjamin, made the position known on Thursday during a virtual dialogue organised by the Education Writers’ Association of Nigeria, themed “2026 Admission Policy Review and JAMB Scorecard: A Conversation with the Registrar.” The defence came amid renewed calls from some stakeholders for a downward review of the minimum admission age.
Benjamin said the benchmark was neither arbitrary nor recent, tracing it to the National Policy on Education, the Universal Basic Education framework and Nigeria’s 6-3-3-4 education structure. “We didn’t just wake up one night and say it must be 16 years,” he said, pointing to age expectations set out in the National Council on Education decisions, the Universal Basic Education Commission Act and the National Policy on Education for primary, secondary and university levels.
He said the board’s stance was shaped by years of monitoring admission processes and student performance. “We have seen over and over again that age continues to play a major role. Beyond academics, education is a serious enterprise. Maturity plays a significant role in who you are, what you want to achieve and how you achieve it,” he stated.
The policy has been contested since its introduction. The age limit issue traces back to 2024, when a former education minister initially set the benchmark at 18 before the current minister, Dr Tunji Alausa, reversed it to 16 years. Even the reduced threshold met legal resistance. In a ruling on February 27, 2025, the Delta State High Court in Warri declared the policy discriminatory, citing Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution, and set it aside. A separate Lagos State High Court ruling in December 2024 favoured a 15-year-old candidate whose admission had been blocked.
Despite the litigation, the board has kept the rule while carving out a narrow path for gifted candidates. JAMB fixed a minimum UTME score of 320 as a condition for exceptional candidates below 16, and maintained that only those who turn 16 by September 30, 2026, are eligible for normal admission. Out of over 38,000 underage candidates who sat the 2026 UTME, only 599 scored 320 and above, a figure the board has cited to justify the strict filter.
Benjamin stressed that the exception exists precisely to protect prodigies. “We do not want to exclude gifted children. If a candidate demonstrates that he or she belongs to that category, the person will be given the opportunity,” he said, while cautioning that “that does not mean every 12-year-old can simply gain admission into a university.”
He recalled that a university in London once queried a Nigerian applicant’s credentials on account of age before accepting JAMB’s explanation. The scale of the screening remains tight. Only 96 students below 16 were admitted for the 2025/2026 session after a multi layered screening process, underscoring how few candidates clear the bar.
With the 2026 admission cycle underway and the appeal against the Delta judgment unresolved, the tension between JAMB’s maturity driven framework and the courts’ anti discrimination position looks set to shape admissions debate well into the new academic year.