Aggrieved candidates for the 2021 Ghana School of Law entrance examination have petitioned the General Legal Council’s independent Examination Committee to seek admission for all students who received an overall 50 percent pass score in the recently held examinations.
The petitioning students also attained the 50 percent mark but were rejected because they attained less than 50 percent in one of the two sections of the entrance exam.
Normally, admission to the Ghana School of Law for professional legal education needs a minimum rank of 50%, however, the new instruction meant that several students were disappointed despite surpassing the 50% threshold.
In the petition, they urge the GLC to revoke the order, which they claim “sought to implement a quota system,” denying 499 of them admission to the School of Law.
They further claimed that this directive had not been followed in prior years.
“We, therefore, believe this notice, issued under the hand of Mr. Kwesi Prempeh-ECK is an anomaly and must be discarded to preserve the sanctity of your respected committee, as well as its well-established marking scheme until it is properly reviewed and appropriately communicated for observance and compliance.”
They also expressed concern that the applicants were not aware of these instructions.
“All rules and guidelines governing the conduct of the exam must be clearly communicated prior to students sitting the paper and not after the release of exam results, as has just been witnessed.”
“Ultimately, they feel the directive “frowns upon our fundamental human right to education and smacks of discrimination against us, which when left to stand will not only serve as an ugly scar in our legal educational history.”
With 790 out of 2,824 students clearing the 2021 Ghana School of Law entrance examinations, 28 percent of LLB candidates gained admission to Ghana’s only school for training lawyers.
The low pass rate has already prompted demands for legal education reform in Ghana.
According to critics, the General Legal Council purposefully restricts people’s access to legal education.
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SOURCE: CITINEWSROOM
