All 25,000 Candidates Fail Liberia University Entrance Test,likened to POST UME

Liberia's main public university said on Wednesday all 25,000 applicants for the new academic year had failed its entrance exam, prompting the president to describe poor education standards in the impoverished nation as a "national emergency".

The University of Liberia, which educates more than half of the country's students in the capital Monrovia, said it had been forced to admit 1,600 failed candidates for the new term which begins next month.

"None of the 25,000 students who sat the test (obtained) the required points," said university vice-president Ansu Sonii.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made an impromptu call at the university to discuss the failure, her office said in a statement, which described the situation as "alarming" and confirmation of a recent statement by the president that "the educational system is a mess".

"Why are the students of the system not performing to the standards expected? Why are they not comparative with those in other countries?" Sirleaf demanded as she met university authorities on Tuesday, according to the statement.

The president urged the country to see the poor performance of the candidates as a "national emergency", the statement added, and called on "all Liberians, irrespective of political background" to tackle the issue of dire standards in schools.

Sirleaf was awarded the Nobel peace prize for her part in ending Liberia's ruinous back-to-back civil wars in 2003, but has been criticised for her failure to improve teaching since she took office three years later.

She admitted that the situation was "embarrassing" for Liberia.

"The problem is not just taking the test and failing. The problem is where they are coming from - so we have to go into those high schools, into those elementary schools and see what is lacking and what we can do about it," Sirleaf was quoted as saying in the statement.