Breaking Ghana School of Law monopoly - Long overdue or political risky leap?
To quote our first President: At long last the battle has ended...
Free forever. Indeed, the battle and all the problems associated with professional law training in gaining admission into the Ghana School of Law, Makola, a long-held monopoly, have ended.
That follows the passage of the Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025, by Parliament and once assented to by President Mahama, this will fulfil a campaign promise by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.
And it seems, for once, the debate on the bill was not partisan and rancorous, save for the Minority Leader’s diversion on the last day to steal the show to trump home his argument on sole sourcing; otherwise, all members fully supported this laudable initiative.
In this article, I shall attempt to discuss whether or not the reform has been long overdue, the reform vis-à-vis quality legal education, the end of a monopoly and if Ghana, and for that matter, our educational institutions are ready, as it were, to embrace this in order not to bring back the chaos associated with the existing system.
Some of us have, over the years, argued that the existing monopolistic system of legal training was, to a greater extent, very elitist inclined and was not in tandem with contemporary global best practice; and in fact, it was also unconstitutional, even though it was a creation of statute, because it was divisive.
The passage of the Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025, is critical and marks a defining moment in the evolution of our justice system.
For decades, access to professional legal training has been constrained by a rigid and exclusionary structure—one that limited opportunity not by merit alone, but by artificial institutional bottlenecks.
Many great minds have been left to rot and not been able to fulfil their dreams of becoming lawyers through no fault of theirs but just the system. Politics aside, this reform must be applauded as not merely welcome but long overdue.
At the heart of the old system had been a troubling paradox.
Universities across Ghana continued to produce increasing numbers of LLB graduates, yet only a small fraction were admitted into the professional Makola programme to train as lawyers, with its limited resources, even though there have been recent attempts to decentralise campuses in Kumasi for the training programme.
The result was a growing class of qualified, but stranded law graduates—individuals who had satisfied academic requirements but were denied progression due to restrictive quotas and impervious entrance mechanisms.
In effect, the pathway to becoming a lawyer became less about competence and more about surviving a narrow funnel.
The Legal Education Reform Bill, 2025, it is anticipated, will seek to dismantle every bottleneck by opening up professional legal training to accredited institutions and introducing a standardised national bar examination not replete with exclusivity with opportunity, while preserving quality through uniform assessment.
Does expanding access to professional legal training risk diluting the already perceptible low standard, and as some will argue, by virtue of the sheer large numbers of lawyers being trained?
To some of us, a well-designed national bar examination will provide a more transparent and equitable measure of competence than arbitrary admission caps ever could and also open the vistas so that no matter your location and or background, you could access it.
Jurisdictions
For some time now, many Ghanaian LLB graduates who are unable to gain admission into Makola have found ways in other jurisdictions and come back after being called to the Bar of those jurisdictions to do a post-call at Makola.
This made the country lose money in terms of school fees and living and accommodation expenses, which are paid out to the governments of those jurisdictions.
In fact, this initiative is not novel as comparative experiences from other jurisdictions strongly support it.
In the United Kingdom, the Solicitors Qualifying Examination has opened multiple pathways into the profession while maintaining a uniform national standard.
In the United States, aspiring lawyers also train in diverse institutions but must pass a rigorous State Bar Examination before practising.
Similarly, Canada combines decentralised legal education with bar examinations and supervised practice, ensuring both competence and practical readiness.
Even our next-door Nigerian folks place emphasis on performance in Bar finals rather than restricting entry through narrow quotas, which is why most Ghanaian law graduates traverse that and other systems to qualify as lawyers.
Ghana’s reform, therefore, reflects not a departure into uncertainty, but a convergence with tested global models.
Monopoly
Is breaking the Makola monopoly long overdue or just a political risky leap?
Reform on this scale is not without risk.
Expanding access without robust oversight may lead to uneven training standards across institutions, particularly where faculty, infrastructure, and clinical legal education are inadequate.
Are our training institutions ready for this in order that we will not cast our minds back and say Makola, come for your stone?
Concerns have been raised about standards, especially regarding those graduates from some of the private training institutions.
It is not gainsaying that this will give further impetus to the already commercialised legal education structure; there is a tendency that some private institutions may prioritise profit over quality if regulatory safeguards are weak.
The capacity of the new regulatory framework to effectively supervise multiple institutions will therefore be critical.
Already, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GITEC) is cracking the whip over accreditation and disputes will continue to linger if not properly streamlined.
These risks, however, do not undermine the necessity of reform—they underscore the importance of getting its implementation right.
This is where my concern is. Accreditation standards must be rigorous and consistently enforced.
The regulatory body must be allowed to operate with independence, transparency, and a firm commitment to maintaining excellence in professional law training, as it were.
The success or otherwise of this reform and legal education in general will depend on GITEC and also the General Legal Council in ensuring that expanding access does not come at the expense of quality.
The writer is Legal Manager/Company Secretary,
Graphic Comm. Group Ltd., Accra.
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