Knee-jerk approach to resolving issues with law school entrance exams bad – Kpemka

A former Deputy Attorney General, Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, has lamented the knee-jerk approach to resolving issues relating to the law school entrance exam that leads to mass failures.

The Former lawmaker for Tempane said on the Key Points on TV3/3FM Saturday, October 9 that there have not been concrete steps taken to resolve these issues that come up yearly.

His comments come after two thousand LLB candidates who sat for the 2021/2021 academic year Ghana School of Law 2021 Entrance Exams failed in the exams.

Students from the various law faculties across the country who sat for the exam, only 790 of them passed representing approximately 28% while the failure represents 72%.

The General Legal Council (GLC), the body in charge of legal education in Ghana and also regulate the legal profession, has come under fire following this development.

Lawmakers, some legal practitioners, and observers have raised issues against the GLC over this matter.

For instance, South Danyi Member of Parliament, Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor said 499 out of the 1289 law students who failed the entrance should have been admitted.

He said, “A further release by the GLC of all exams results after public pressure would suggest that 1289 examinees met the minimum pass requirement of 50% in keeping with the known pass standard for all previous entrance exams conducted by the GLC.

“It is most bizarre therefore that 499 of 1289 have not been considered eligible for admission into the GSL when indeed they scored a minimum of 50% or better.

“In an attempt to explain this inconsistency of not admitting the 499 students, the GLC, through its director further released a notice on its Notice Board, setting out what clearly is an afterthought, and setting out an est post facto rationalisation of the inconsistency. In the said notice, the director purports to set a previously unknown new standard of a pass of 50% in each of the two sections A and B in the exam.”

The GLC also received flak from a former Director of the Ghana School of Law, Professor Kwaku Ansa Asare, for this development.

In the view of Prof Asare, the GLC lacks the competence to supervise anybody to conduct entrance examinations into the Ghana School of Law.

“Quite a number of them do not appear to understand and appreciate legal education. Most of them know next to nothing about legal education. The body, the General Legal Council, should have been scrapped soon after Ghana attained Republican Status.

“They should establish a National Council of Legal education to be made up of people who have the expertise,” Prof Asare said.

Contributing to a discussion on this development, Mr. Joseph Kpemka Dindiok told Dzifa Bampoh on the Key Points that “I have had the opportunity of serving the General Legal Council (GLC) as Deputy Attorney General, the nominee of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General. I have made my inputs on this matter.

“It is unfortunate, all we do is that when this issue comes up yearly, we make all the noise after a week or two, that is the end of it. We wait, it comes again the following year, we make noise, after a week or two, it goes.

“There are no concrete steps put in place to nip this in the bud once and for all as a nation.

“The conversation seems to be one of a knee-jerk reaction to the release of results rather than a long-term lasting solution that ought to be found without delay in this particular matter.

“I have heard the students make their compliant. It is true, the majority of us lawyers today did not go through what they are going through, it is probably because of the number of those days. I recall that when I finished my LLB programme, I published the results and I walked to the Law School and filled the form, took my admission letter and that was all that happened. There was nothing like entrance exams or interview."