The Global University for Innovation (GUNiAfrica) President Peter Okebukola has praised the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar Is-haq Oloyede for convening the first stakeholders’ engagement on underage students admitted in the 2025/2026 academic session.

The JAMB Equal Opportunity Group (JEOG) chairman gave the commendation in Abuja at the end of the event.

The professor said no higher education system in the world has established such a support system at the national level as what Oloyede has set up for underage students. Recall that 96 students who were below the statutory minimum age of 16 years were admitted to universities for the 2025/2026 session, having each satisfied a stringent multi-layered screening process.

The conditions for their admission, approved by the Ministry of Education in 2025, required a minimum UTME score of 320 (equivalent to 80 per cent), a minimum of 80 per cent in the post-UTME examination, a minimum of 80 per cent in the Senior School Certificate Examination, and a minimum of 80 per cent in an independent expert assessment interview.

Okebukola emphasised that the group does not view the underage students as problems to be managed but as young Nigerians representing both an extraordinary opportunity and a shared national responsibility.