About 25,000 students took the entrance examination to qualify for admission to the University of Liberia in West Africa. None of the students passed the examination. In order to gain the admission standard, students needed to score at least 60 percent on the mathematics section of the examination and 70 percent on the English part of the test. Some 308 students reached the required threshold on the mathematics section but none of those students also reached the threshold on the English section.
The university hired an outside administrator to conduct the examination, who clearly made the test more difficult that was the case in the past. He was quoted in local press reports saying that in the past corruption determined successful candidates but that now merit would be the sole criteria.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, later announced that 1,800 students who took the examination would be admitted to the university.
