All applicants fail Liberia university entrance test
All 25,000 individuals who applied to the University of Liberia were forced
to swallow their pride: none of them passed the entrance exam, forcing the
admissions office to lower its selection standards.
By <
http://www.france24.com/en/category/tags-auteurs/france-24> FRANCE 24
(text)
30/08/2013
Out of 25,000 candidates who applied to the University of Liberia, one of
the African nation's two universities, exactly zero passed the admissions
exam.
The results, which came on August 21, have caused waves of discontent in the
country's academic community.
Liberia is recovering from a violent civil war that came to an end a decade
ago, but left its education system "in a mess", as President Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf recently said.
Education Minister Etmonia David-Tarpeh spoke out about the situation,
telling the BBC: "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.It's like mass murder."
Meanwhile, Momodu Getaweh, a spokesperson for the university, told Britain's
international news channel that there would be no make-up exam, and that the
applicants were desperately lacking in enthusiasm when it came to learning.
"In English, the mechanics of the language, they didn't know anything about
it," Getaweh said.
According to the news site allafrica.com, the University of Liberia had
decided to raise its admission standards for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Any student seeking a spot at the university needed to score higher than 50%
on the maths section and 70% on the English section, as opposed to 33% and
49% the previous year (when 7,500 students were admitted).
Faced with the prospect of empty first-year class rooms, the University of
Liberia swiftly adjusted its admission standards for this year,
allafrica.com reported. Some 1,626 applicants were ultimately accepted once
the minimum passing scores were reset to 40% in maths and 50% in English.
The students will all have to attend remedial-level classes to improve their
skills.
"[T]he government has to do something," Getaweh told the BBC. "The
<
http://www.france24.com/en/20130122-liberia-charles-taylor-appeals-war-crim
es-sentence> war has ended ten years ago now. We have to put that behind us
and become realistic."
Received on Fri Aug 30 2013 - 18:50:03 EDT