• Only 790 out of 2,824 candidates passed the 2021 Law School entrance exams
• General Legal Council accused of deliberately limiting qualified candidates
Students of the Ghana School Law say they will stage a demonstration on Wednesday, October 20, 2021, to register their grievances on the failures recorded in the recent law school entrance exams.
In August this year, the General Legal Council released results for the 2021 Law School entrance exam and only 790 out of the total 2,824 candidates were reported to have passed the exam.
However, some aggrieved candidates have since been agitating about the results by accusing the GLC of changing the quota system for the exam.
According to the candidates, the pass mark for the exam had always been a 50% mark in both sections however the GLC has noted that the candidates have to score at least 50% in both sections. The candidates say the new scheme is an afterthought introduced by the GLC to deny them admission.
The National Association of Law Students (NALS) has thus written to the Greater Accra Regional Police Command to notify them of their resolve to hit the streets on Wednesday to among other things demand reforms in the nation’s legal education.
“Some 2,000 law students, graduates and associates are estimated or expected to attend as demonstrators, and the closing time of the demonstration will be 2 pm or so soon thereafter as the demonstrators may be addressed by the President, or the Vice President or a bona fide Cabinet Minister other than the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, upon receipt of the petition,” the statement said.
The NALS had earlier claimed that 1,289 out of the 2,824 students who sat for the exams met the 50% pass mark and that some 499 candidates were excluded from the list of successful candidates.
“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 dated October 5, 2021.
“NALS is saddened and notes that this published 2021 success rate would have been poorer, not because students underperformed, but because the original intention was to admit only 550 students predetermined irrespective of the actual performance,” the group added.
The demonstration is scheduled for Wednesday, October 20, 2021