The National Common Entrance Examination for admission into Unity Schools across the nation is now off-limits to minors due to a federal regulation.
It also instructed the National Examination Council, or NECO, to implement strict procedures, such as making birth documents a condition for registration, to stop minors from signing up for the exam.
David Andrew Adejo, the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education in Abuja, made this announcement on Saturday.
In all, 72,821 individuals nationwide took the test on Saturday.
Before being admitted to secondary school, Adejo stated that candidates needed be at least 12 years old.
At both the Federal Government Girls College, Bwari, and the Government Day Secondary School, Bwari, in the FCT, the Permanent Secretary observed the administration of the 2023 Common Entrance Examination for admission to the 110 Federal Government Colleges throughout the federation.
He voiced his disapproval of the examination’s high participation rate of minors.
I have some advice for parents this year, and I implore you to pass it along to every single home you know. By permitting minors to take the common entrance exams, we are killing our youngsters.
“Let our kids wait till they are of age to take this exam, and we’ll see to it that NECO puts in place the proper safeguards. Although it is the stage we are now at, we didn’t want to get to the point where we would ask for a birth certificate. Upload the child’s birth certificate together with the registration form so that we can cut some of these things at our end, he added.