The Student’s Representative Council (SRC) of the Ghana School of Law will send a formal written request to the Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Aaron Oquaye, on Tuesday urging him to institute investigations into the mass failure in a recent examination the school conducted.

The student body is also considering a number of possibilities, including boycotting classes, to register its displeasure regarding the current Legal Profession Regulations 2018 (LI 2355) which covers professional and post-call law courses.

At a student forum in Accra last Friday, the students complained and expressed their displeasure with the LI 2355, particularly the section that states that a student would be repeated if he or she fails in three out of 10 papers.

The forum was organised by the SRC to solicit the views of students following the release of the 2018 professional law examination results which revealed mass failure.

Background

Per the results released, a total of 284 students are set to repeat and rewrite all the 10 courses or programmes they have registered.

Additionally, 177 students who were referred in various papers will have to take a resit in those papers.

According to the results released by the Independent Examinations Committee of the General Legal Council, only 64 students passed in all the papers.

The examination papers included criminal procedure, civil procedure, company and commercial practice, law practice management, legal accountancy, evidence and interpretation, conveyancing and drafting.

Reports suggest that the majority of the referred students failed in family law, evidence and advocacy.

This is in stark contrast to the outcome of last year’s professional law exams, where 279 students passed and were called to the Bar.

Why petition

At the forum, a number of students called for radical changes in the entire examination procedure at the law school, indicating that the way the examination was being conducted currently was harsh and unfair.

The students also urged their leaders to be more radical in their approach since all efforts to get their concerns addressed were not yielding any results.

The President of the SRC, Mr Emmanuel Kobby Amoah, said the leadership of the student body was using every avenue possible to get the concerns of the students addressed.

He said the council had already spoken to some members of the school’s management and was also in the process of getting more office bearers involved before taking a final decision.

Explaining why the SRC intended to petition Parliament, Mr Amoah said it was unfair for students to spend all their time learning and to write examinations only to be told they failed.

He said failing students en masse was becoming a big issue among the students and called for something to be done to save both the present and future students from the debacle.

With regard to the LI 2355, Mr Amoah said the section which “states that students who fail in three out of 10 papers are required to repeat the course must be looked at again.”

“It cannot be that all the students are not learning. Something must be done,” he added.