A National Association of Law Students (NALS) leader says urgent changes must be made at the top hierarchy of the General Legal Council (GLC) to make it vibrant in Ghana's legal education.

Hassan Asare told Prime Morning on Friday the GLC lacks the competence to run educational affairs, saying that is a clear deviation from the purpose it is to serve.

The 2021 Law School Entrance Exams saw only 790 out of the 2,824 candidates pass to gain admission into the professional school.

This means 2,030 students failed and will not be admitted into the Ghana School of Law.

The Association disclosed in a press release that some law students failed their entrance examinations not because they did not pass but because there was an original intention to admit only 550 students.

The Association claims that 1,289 out of the 2,824 students who sat for the exams met the 50% pass mark yet, were excluded from the successful candidates.

“NALS regrets ascertaining thereto that contrary to the earlier results, some 1,289 out of the 2,824 candidates, representing 45.6%, obtained 50% aggregated score hitherto set as a pass mark.”

“Yet, there was a clear, very inexcusable exclusion of some 499 candidates, constituting 39% of candidates who obtained this 50% and 18% of all the candidates,” NALS alleged in a statement.

According to Mr Asare, if the Parliament House can determine the number of students to enter the law school, it means the GLC is not autonomous as it ought to be.

"I think it [GLC] needs a total overhaul because you cannot put a square peg in a round hole. Lawyers and judges are supposed to adjudicate; their place is not run education, so that by itself is the first question that I will pose to anybody who asks such a question."

"You have the chairman of the GLC being the Chief Justice; his three immediate associates are also on the board, the Attorney General who represents the President is on that board.

"When there are issues, and you have to resolve them, indirectly, you are going back to the same board that took a decision actually to adjudicate on the matter," he said.

The GLC is the main regulatory body for conducting and administering legal education and profession in Ghana.

But people are raising agitations already after the outcome of the 2021 entrance exams.

Madina MP, Francis-Xavier Sosu has petitioned the Speaker of Parliament to launch a probe into the mass failure.

South Dayi MP, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, also wants the Chief Justice to fully disclose the outcome of a probe into the unlawful admission of over 200 students into the Ghana School of Law last year.