MONROVIA, Liberia, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- Not a single person passed this year's test to gain admission to the University of Liberia, mostly because of a lack of English skills, a school official said.
Nearly 25,000 potential students took the $25 entrance exam, but the school, one of Liberia's two state-run universities, will not be admitting a single freshman this year because they all failed, the BBC reported Tuesday.
"In English, the mechanics of the language, they didn't know anything about it. So the government has to do something," university spokesman Momodu Getaweh said.
The nationalities of those who took the exam were not reported.
University of Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said the country's education system is in a mess 10 years after a brutal civil war ended there. Many schools lack basic education materials and teachers are poorly qualified, the BBC said.
Education Minister Etmonia David-Tarpeh said she planned to speak with the school officials to discuss the failure of a single person to pass the test.
"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," she said. "It's like mass murder."
