All 25,000 Candidates Fail Liberia University Entrance Examination

Liberia's education minister says she finds it
hard to believe that not a single candidate
passed this year's university admission exam.
Nearly 25,000 school-leavers failed the test for
admission to the University of Liberia, one of
two state-run universities.
The results mean there will be no freshers at
west Africa's oldest degree-granting
institution, one of two state-run universities in
Liberia, when it reopens its doors next month
for another academic year.
The students lacked enthusiasm and did not
have a basic grasp of English, a university
official told the BBC.
Liberia is recovering from a brutal civil war
that ended a decade ago.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel peace
laureate, recently acknowledged that the
education system is still in a "in a mess", and
much needed to be done improve it.
However, Education Minister Etmonia David-
Tarpeh told the BBC Focus on Africa
programme that she intended to meet
university officials to discuss the issue.
"I know there are a lot of weaknesses in the
schools but for a whole group of people to
take exams and every single one of them to
fail, I have my doubts about that," Ms David-
Tarpeh said.
"It's like mass murder."
Ms David-Tarpeh said she knew some of the
students and the schools they attended.
"These are not just schools that will give
people grades. I'd really like to see the results
of the students," she added.
University spokesman Momodu Getaweh told
BBC Focus on Africa that the university stood
by its decision, and it would not be swayed by
"emotion".
"In English, the mechanics of the language,
they didn't know anything about it. So the
government has to do something," he said.
"The war has ended 10 years ago now. We
have to put that behind us and become
realistic."
The Voice of America (VOA) reported that the
university hired a private consultant to
manage and administer this year's entrance
exam.
The consultant, James Dorbor Jallah, told the
VOA: "There is a perception in our society
largely that once you take the University of
Liberia admission exam, if you do not pay
money to someone, or if you do not have
appropriate connections, you would not be
placed on the results list. So, the university
has been grappling with how they could
manage the process whereby people's abilities
would be truly measured on the basis of their
performance in the examination."
Liberia could draw a lesson from the mass
failure, he added. "For the country as a whole,
I think this is a clarion call that we need to all
see that the king is moving around unclad and
not pretend as though the emperor has his
finest clothes on."