Discard content-based regulation of Legal education-Law Prof to GLC
He notes that it would be preferable for the GLC to rather mandate a defined number of competencies or skills that students are required to demonstrate prior to admission to the Ghana School of Law.
A Professor of Law at the California Western School of Law and a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, Prof Richard Frimpong Oppong has called on the General Legal Council to discard the content-based regulation of legal education in Ghana.
He notes that it would be preferable for the GLC to rather mandate a defined number of competencies or skills that students are required to demonstrate prior to admission to the Ghana School of Law.
Speaking at Day 2 of the 55th Series of the JB Danquah Memorial Lecture, Prof. Oppong also indicated this arrangement would give the Law faculties the freedom to decide, through innovative curricula, how to satisfy those competencies.
“I argue that content-based regulation of legal education should be discarded. Far from prescribing courses that law faculties must teach, it would be preferable for the GLC to mandate a defined number of competencies or skills that students are required to demonstrate prior to admission to the Ghana School of Law.”
“Law faculties would then have the freedom to decide, through innovative curricula, how to satisfy those competencies. Given the focus of this lecture, one of the competencies that should be prescribed is digital competence.”
Additionally, he mentioned that content-based regulation stifles innovation in the curriculum of law schools, as they all end up teaching the same courses – often referred to as core courses – with very few optional courses.
Also, Prof Oppong made it known that per the current regulatory regime, Law students tend to focus on mastering the content of courses, hoping to pass a closed-book examination, only to forget the materials thereafter.
The 55th session of the JB Danquah Memorial Lecture by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences is being held for three days, February 21-23, 2022 at exactly 5:30 pm each day at the Auditorium of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The 3-Lecture is on the topic; ‘Digitalisation and the Future of the Ghana Legal System.’
