The Member of Parliament for Madina Constituency Francis-Xavier Sosu, has called on Parliament to investigate failures being recorded annually by prospective students of Ghana Law School.
Mr. Sosu petitioned Ghana’s Parliament through the Speaker for a holistic investigation to find out the cause of the poor performance.
Recent entrance examinations results as released by the General Legal Council, (GLC) showed that out of a total 2824 who sat for the exams, about 78% of applicants failed to make the mark that will qualify them to pursue their dream of becoming lawyers.
This year’s poor performance drew a lot of criticism from the general public and some legislators as well.
For MP of the people of South Dayi, Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor in a recent interview on Zylofon FM, said the situation as it is now, has to do with what he described as an inordinate penchant to allow persons from all walks of life to receive professional training in the law otherwise, asking why would GLC permit about ten universities to run LLB programmes, yet refuse to expand access to professional training?
He blamed the massive failures on desires of the authorities handling the Ghana School of Law to make improvement in the legal education, but ended up “in an imperceptible manner, to bring roadblocks and impediments on the way of persons who desire to have legal education in Ghana”, and essentially calling for something to be done to reverse the situation.
However, on Wednesday October 6, 2021, Madina MP and the Deputy Ranking Member of the Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs Committee Francis-Xavier Sosu, said “Article 37(1) of the 1992 Constitution provides that the State shall endeavor to secure and protect a social order founded on the ideals and principle of freedom, equality, justice, probity, and accountability as enshrined in Chapter 5 of this Constitution; and in particular, the State shall direct its policy towards ensuring every citizen has equality of rights, obligations, and opportunities before the law.”
He continued that “As such, there is the need for investigations to ascertain whether or not the pass rates and scores are based on the actual performance of students during examinations, or as a result of lack of available infrastructure to accommodate the excess numbers, hence this petition”.
In 2019, the Ghana Legal Council (GLC) has constituted a Committee to look into the mass failures in the Professional Law Examinations.
The unprecedented failures in the past few years have raised concerns among prospective students and the general public.
The law student body has even petitioned parliament and the Legal Council to intervene and deal with the matter.
“As an immediate measure, the GLC acting through its Chairperson, her Ladyship the Chief Justice, has constituted a Committee chaired by her Ladyship Mrs. Justice Sophia Adinyira, Justice of the Supreme Court, to investigate the causes and make appropriate short, medium and long-term recommendations to the Council”, a statement from the GLC stated.
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