Monrovia – The University of Liberia’s credibility has come under questioning as many students who the university claimed failed the entrance and placement examination are proving the university wrong.
Report by J.H. Webster Clayeh [email protected]
“I wonder what kind of integrity the testing and evaluation department has. They are not responsible enough to run further test at this university” – Student John Zayzay
An investigation conducted by the FrontPageAfrica has established that several students who the university claimed failed the test have now been granted admission after their challenge of the results was successful.
One of such students, John Zayzay said, “I wonder what kind of integrity the testing and evaluation department has. They are not responsible enough to run further test at this university”.
Zayzay believes many other students like him passed the test, but the testing and evaluation department was not meticulous enough during the marking process.
“How will these people come out with the entrance results and say we all failed and now, here I am walking like a free man to begin my registration process?” Zayzay asked rhetorically.
Musu Mulbah initially thought she failed the test but found out that she actually passed.
“I got encouraged by one of my neighbors. He told me yesterday that he challenged the test and he passed.
He told to me to do the same so I got up early this morning to register. And so you can see I am now going to begin my registration process right away,” she said.
According to Mulbah, she never thought she would have been successful after the challenge. She urged most of her colleagues to muster the courage to challenge results.
FPA observed students are now turning up in large numbers to challenge the entrance results.
The UL administration claimed that out of the 8,318 persons that sat the entrance and placement test, only 1778 successfully passed the entrance while 6,540 students failed.
In 2013, the University of Liberia announced that all 25,000 students who sat the entrance and placement examination failed the test.
However, an intervention by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf forced the university to back down and give places to a lucky 1,800.
In 2014, the university disclosed that only 15 out 13,000 students who sat the entrance examination passed.
The epic failure of every single candidate in the admission exam provoked bafflement, consternation and heated debate across the country with some convinced that flaws in Liberia’s education system had been brutally exposed, while others were of the opinion that the alleged failure was a scam by the university to control the intake of students due to limited resources.
Though not a new phenomenon, challenging entrance results just began taking center stage in the education system. Some students, however, believe it’s a waste of time.
David Kessely, 25, a resident of the Buzzi Quarter community in Monrovia said he was disappointed when he checked in the UL Review (paper published by the University) and did not see his name.
Kessely: “I was not successful in the UL placement exam. I’m very much disappointed in the UL entrance result because my name did not come out. I am also not aware of people challenging the entrance result.
“I don’t believe that I will be successful when I go to challenge the result. So I will just wait for another time to take it again.”
Daniel Sargbe, Secretary General of the Conscious Students Alliance for Democratic Promotion – a student-based organization at the University of Liberia – said he believes that the university’s administration was taking advantage of President Sirleaf’s pronouncement that the education system was a “mess” to deny students of their right to education.
According to him, students wanting to attend the university are denied through the entrance examination because the university lacks facilities to host the number of students who register for the test.
“We do believe that this particular thing is always bringing the university to disrepute. We do believe that the university should be a moral ground of excellence. But this particular university is the moral ground of breeding corruption. What become of the money the students are paying,” he said.
Albert Seepo Doe, a student leader of the Students Integration Movement (SIM) told the FPA that many students passed the entrance. According to him, 25 of 25 students who challenged the result passed.
Doe: “For the fact that you will want about 2,000 persons and you do a placement exam to over 8,000 persons, I think that alone is not realistic and is not logical at all.
“If you do your mathematic you would realize that you will have more than 60 percent persons failing than the people that will pass.”
Student J. Fahn Delger of the Student Democratic Alliance (STUDA) alarmed that the number of successes coming out of the numerous challenges undermined the integrity of the entrance and placement examination.
“Students who have come to challenge the test are coming out with flying color. So, what happened to the test that they took? Delgar asked rhetorically.
“This brings to the attention to the UL placement and evaluation center that they are not up to the task and they are not doing due diligence to the school community.”
A Security guard at the offices of the testing and evaluation center stopped the FPA from seeing its head, Forkpah Mulbah. However, when the FPA contacted him via mobile phone, Mulbah said the administration would officially announce the number of students who passed and failed on Monday of next week.
Similarly, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) Liberia office recently rescinded its pronouncement that no student obtained Division One in its 2016 examination.
However, a challenge put up the J. J. Roberts Methodist School proved the testing body wrong.
The school discovered that one of its students Armstrong Gbessage obtained Division One after the challenge.
The Assistant Head of WAEC Test Administration Division, Dale Gboto, said WAEC is a human institution and as such is not infallible.
He said WAEC takes full responsibility for the incident, adding that there are current viewings of the inner workings of the office.
Mr. Gboto: “Immediately after we released the results to the schools, there were many issues raised by the school heads, some were flagged by the media.
“We received requests for revision, but we, as procedural institution, there are provisions that require for unsatisfactory result to be reviewed.
“We found out that, so many stakeholders didn’t come to challenge the results but we appreciate those who requested for results to be challenged.
“If we had not received this request, we wouldn’t have known this guy [from J. J. Roberts United Methodist School had reached Division-1.
