The Member of Parliament for Old Tafo constituency, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, is urging the public to speak up against what he describes as unfairness in legal education in Ghana.
Mr. Assafuah’s call comes in the wake of controversies over the mass failure in the Ghana School of Law entrance exams.
It emerged that the General Legal Council, the body in charge of legal education in Ghana, applied a new rule requiring candidates to pass 50% in each of the A and B sections in the exam without informing the students.
According to Mr. Assafuah, the development led to the worrying situation of LLB holders who hoped to gain admission to the school.
Meanwhile, Parliament is expected to examine a petition submitted through the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee on the matter.
Read Mr. Assafuah’s full statement below:
GENERAL LEGAL COUNCIL MUST DO THE NEEDFUL
I have taken note of the growing agitation among Law students who sat for the recent Ghana School of Law Entrance Exams.
This is fast becoming a core feature of our national lives, every year. We have seen in the past students take to the streets to register their displeasure over these and similar matters regarding legal education in the country.
What is most worrying about this year’s situation is that LLB holders who did not make the supposed 50% pass mark — were at the verge of beating their swords into ploughshares — only to find out through a subsequent communiqué that they have been subjected to a retrospective rule. A rule that, as it would appear, none of them was aware of, at the time of writing the examinations.
This action by the Interim Examination Council is completely unfair and reflective of the oft-cited capricious intentions of the General Legal Council to gate-keep legal education in the country.
I, therefore, call on the Ghana Legal Council to intervene and to ensure that the additional 499 students who met the 50% pass mark as advertised are admitted into the Ghana School of Law.
I also call on well-meaning Ghanaians and civil society organizations to speak up on this matter – Nobody deserves this level of unfairness.
I’m also aware that a
Hon Vincent Ekow Assafuah (MP)
Member, Select Committee on Education.