The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has cautioned parents, against enrolling minors for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede gave the warning while reacting 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.
“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,” he said
Mrs. Eke 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.
But reacting to the incident in an interview with the press on Tuesday, Oloyede said the Board is ready to meet with the woman, maintaining that the sender of the message was not its staff.
The Registrar said since the incident happened, JAMB reported to the security agencies to take appropriate action but the woman did not care, suing for N100 million at the expense of the child.
He said, “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.
“We will meet her in court, it is for the court to decide whether she deserves that money.”
The JAMB boss maintained that the person got the telephone number of the victim at the centre because they had a form to fill, saying that it has dealt appropriately with the centre, the reason being that it shouldn’t have allowed unauthorized persons on the premises.
He continued; “Even if the centres do not have access to our database, the person must have collected the number while interacting with her at the centre.
“We dealt with the centre on negligence, for allowing unauthorized persons to have access to where these candidates were. And we are urging parents to allow their children to be mature before registering for UTME.
“We are now saying that any centre that allows a parent to get near to where the candidates are been screened, that centre will be deleted.
“Secondly, we have instructed the centres to stop identifying the parents of the candidates and we will take appropriate action against the candidates.
“Parents cannot destroy the career of their children because of their emotions and indiscipline,” he added.