Speaking at a media briefing in Colombo, he added that the percentage should be increased to 35% in the next five days.

Although 20.79% of students qualified for university education were taken to universities in 1990, the figure had dropped to 13% by 2013, he added.

He further said that the number of students who were not selected despite being qualified, were 120,000 in 2012, 118,540 in 2013 and 125,229 in 2014.

The university intake had declined had declined over the recent years even though the number of universities had increased to 15 from just 09 in 1990, Ratnayake further said.