Failing Law Entrance exams does not make you a bad student-Ghana School Law SRC President
“Let us discuss this properly, Students graduated in July and they sat for exams in August. Was the preparation enough? This is not to defend the General Legal Council but I want us to have a holistic discussion on this matter as a nation going forward,”
President of the Student Representative Council(SRC) of the Ghana School of Law, Wonder Kutor has urged students who failed this year’s GSL Entrance exams not to see themselves as failures.
He added that the examination is not an indication that the students were below standard.
Also, he revealed that 65 percent of lawyers called to the Gambian Bar this year were Ghanaians who failed the law entrance examinations in Ghana.
“We must not limit ourselves to pass and failure. It is not only about passing what happens in this country is that once they release the entrance results then we all start talking about the failure rate but let us be honest…,” he noted
He made this statement on Tuesday, September 28, 2021, on the Good Evening Ghana show on Metro TV, which was monitored by DL News.
Background
This statement comes after only 790 candidates representing 28% out of the total 2,824 who sat for the 2021 GSL entrance exams, passed.
Two thousand and thirty-four(2,034) candidates have however failed.
2020
Last year, a total of 1,045 candidates representing 38% passed out of a total of 2,763 candidates who sat for the Ghana School of Law entrance exams.
In that year, 1718 representing 62% sadly could not meet the 50% pass mark set for qualification into the school.
Notwithstanding, this number was a significant improvement on what was experienced in the 2019 entrance exams.
2019
In 2019, only 128 of the 1,820 candidates who sat for the exam passed to enroll in the Ghana School of Law.
Mr Kutor however, attributed the high rate of failure in the exams to the inadequate preparation of students occasioned by the limited time between the completion of their LLB programme and the date for the entrance exams.
“Let us discuss this properly, Students graduated in July and they sat for exams in August. Was the preparation enough? This is not to defend the General Legal Council but I want us to have a holistic discussion on this matter as a nation going forward,” he noted.
The SRC President also cautioned and advised LLB graduates who may have plans to study their professional law in other African Countries especially.
“I want to make a point respectfully, normally what happens is that when some are unable to entre they go to other jurisdictions, Gambia Rwanda Nigeria and. I want to give this advice to the general public, to our colleagues, who have not been able to enter that we know of such individuals who went to Rwanda and came but and were not admitted for post-call, and had to go to the Gambia. When they came back, Gambia is recognized and they were admitted. So they have to check properly which institutions they are going to,” Mr Kutor added.
In conclusion, he called for a National discussion on the mass failure of LLB graduates into the Ghana School of Law and suggested a possible reschedule of the date for the writing of the entrance exams, to enable candidates prepare adequately.
“So, we need to discuss a nation. When students graduate in July you allow them to wait and apply the following year,” he concluded.
