RIYADH: Student admission to university should be based on potential and results of the tests after their secondary education, according to an educational consultant.

Saud bin Salih Al-Misaibih said in his Twitter account, :“High school education is important because it prepares students for the entrance tests to college.”

However, he noted that only half of high school graduates should enter university since not all of them are adequately equipped to pass the entrance exam.

“Finishing secondary education is important. However, if they’re not ready to pass the entrance test to the university, they may go to other areas of life or enroll in special institutes,” he said.

He said that there’s popular demand to enter college, resulting in great numbers of students at the expense of knowledge and capability to cope with a university education.

“This results in unemployment. Because of pressure from society, universities and colleges were opened without complete infrastructure. Some don’t even have curriculum and educational staff,” he said.

He called for the rationalization of tertiary education and fairness in the selection of students, adding that only those eligible should be admitted. The disciplines offered should be what the labor market requires.

He noted that the Kingdom has the greatest number of high school graduates entering university at 94 percent, and South Korea came in second at 56 percent.

He said that what is important is quality and not quantity, which leads to non-qualified graduates with certificates.

He added that it’s “a big catastrophe if a graduate has a certificate and insists on being admitted to the job he’s applying for.”

He noted that a college graduate gets a 4.5 out of 5 (excellent) but is unable to get a measurement of 50 on the tests given by the National Center for Assessment in Higher Education (Qiyas).