Agbim: 18yr-old bags First-class in AI abroad

SIR: Amid confusion on the minimum age for admissions into tertiary institutions in Nigeria, Stephanie Chinazam Agbim, a British-Nigerian girl who had part of her secondary education at Best School International Abuja made records by finishing her university education at 18 years with First-class Honours in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from Coventry University, United Kingdom.

She finished her university programme on the 5th of April, 2024 but the convocation ceremony was held on the 16th of July, 2024. The young girl makes family and also Nigeria proud as her home-country.
 
The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, during his tour of the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination centres, said that the Federal Government was considering the adoption of 18 years as the entry age for admission into universities and other tertiary institutions. The announcement was met with mixed feelings.

Participants were distressed that candidates seeking admission into higher institutions must be 18 and above, and argued that 18-years as the minimum age is too high.

However, the Senate has assured Nigerians that the 16-year age requirement for applicants seeking admission to tertiary institutions in the country has not been changed. The minister argues that students below 18 years are underage and unfit to navigate the unsupervised way of living at the tertiary level. He thereby directed universities to only grant admissions to students who are 18 years and above into tertiary institutions.

In a report, the minister stated: “JAMB is hereby notified that there is now a ban on underage students, those under the age of 18 into our tertiary institutions from this 2024 admissions.”

This development is a big blow to the proposal by the minister. Would the federal government learn from the knockout is a matter for another day. In a clearer mode, Mamman’s ground for his submission is that younger students are responsible for scores of the challenges within the system. Isn’t this a mere fallacy or weak point? Some opinions have it that policymakers are always wasting energy in enthroning trivialities rather than exploring ways to rescue the system from decay.
 
From the report, Stephanie started her academic journey at 18 months of age with the playgroup and proceeded to secondary school at age 9. Stephanie started preparing for the Cambridge GCSE and A’ Level from the age of 13. She did very well with these university preparatory exams and applied for admission to proceed with her studies. Luckily, Coventry University among other universities offered her admission. Stephanie, being enthusiastic and confident, didn’t bother about her age over older students who were in the same journey of academic pursuit to compete with.

According to her, the journey was tough but she persevered. Among her challenges was her admission process which confronted scores of hitches alongside her age considering she was applying to enter the universities while she was still 15 years. The offers were coming with conditions given her age. In her story, her advantage was her birth month which gave her the chance to become 16 years old before her course start date. By and large, she conquered. And the rest is history. The journey has yielded the young girl accolades which attest that determination, hard work, and grace are the keys to success.
 
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been effectively used in business to automate tasks traditionally done by humans, including customer service, lead generation, fraud detection, and quality control. In several areas, AI can perform tasks more efficiently and accurately than humans. It is especially useful for repetitive, detail-oriented tasks such as analyzing large numbers of legal documents to ensure relevant fields are properly filled in.

AI’s ability to process massive data sets gives enterprises insights into their operations they might not otherwise have noticed. The rapidly expanding array of generative AI tools is also becoming important in fields ranging from education to marketing to product design.

In manufacturing, for example, AI-powered robots are increasingly used to perform hazardous or repetitive tasks as part of warehouse automation, thus reducing the risk to human workers and increasing overall productivity. Other advantages are consistency in results; customisation and personalisation; Round-the-clock availability; scalability; accelerated research and development; sustainability and conservation, and process optimisation as well as efficiency in data-heavy tasks.
 
By Stephanie’s success story amid commotion over the minimum age for administration into tertiary institutions, Nigeria indeed faces the paradox of plenty, which means despite its abundant assets; human and natural, it is in decay due to poor planning, reckless and fragile government policies.

The young girl would have been among the many victims in the society facing such reckless and abysmal policies if in the country. State actors should therefore endeavour to explore, and undertake extensive research before adopting policies.

To measure in AI, having a flair for programming, mathematics, and statistics to grasp the fundamental concepts is inevitable. Despite all it takes, the young student dared and thrived. In the global space, Artificial Intelligence is changing the narratives. Such an exploit is uncommon and deserves accolades.
 
Carl Umegboro, a lawyer and social policy analyst, wrote from Abuja.