The federal government has banned underage children from participating in the National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) for admission into federal unity colleges across the country.
It also instructed the National Examination Council, NECO, to implement strict procedures, such as requiring birth documents as a prerequisite for registration, to stop minors from signing up for the exam.
The Federal Ministry of Education’s Permanent Secretary in Abuja, David Andrew Adejo, made this announcement on Saturday.
On Saturday across the country, a total of 72,821 individuals took the test.
Prior to admittance into secondary school, Adejo said that applicants needed be at least 12 years old.
The Permanent Secretary monitored the conduct of the 2023 Common Entrance Examination into the 110 Federal Government Colleges across the federation, at both the Federal Government Girls College, Bwari, and Government Day Secondary School, Bwari, in FCT.
He expressed displeasure over the number of underage persons participating in the examination.
“This year, I have advice for parents, and I beg you, take this advice to any single home you know. We are killing our children by allowing underage children to write the common entrance examination.
“Let our children get to appropriate age before writing this exam and we are going to make sure NECO put in place appropriate checks. We didn’t want to get to where we will say bring birth certificate but that is the stage we are going to now. In registering also upload the child’s birth certificate, so that at our own end, we are able to cut some of these things,” he said.