Law students reject results after only 91 out of 474 students pass exams

The Students Representative Council (SRC) of the Ghana School of Law has rejected the results of the 2017-2018 final exams of the Ghana School of Law, which failed an unprecedented 206 law students and halted their bid to become lawyers this year.

The students have consequently called for the total scrapping of the Independent Examination Board (IEB) after 206 final law students failed their professional exams, while another 177 students have been referred in one or two papers out of the 474 students who sat for the 2017-2018 final exams.

Only 91 students, constituting 19 per cent, are deemed to have passed their exams and are likely to be called to the Bar this year.

The SRC is, therefore, proposing another independent body to re-mark their exams because the Independent Examination Body (IED) lacks diligence and integrity.

IEB lacks integrity

President of the SRC, Mr Sammy Gyamfi, said the council had rejected the results, saying it did not believe in the integrity of the results that had been published.

“We think that the Independent Examination Board had not been diligent in their duties in the marking of our results’, he said in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

“We think the IED is an inefficient, ineffective, illegal and an amorphous body, which doesn’t have the competence to conduct professional examinations for professional legal students in Ghana”, he said.

The SRC, which is due to hold a news conference today is hopeful that when an independent body is contracted to mark their scripts, a good number who were failed will end up passing their exams.

 The SRC President described the mass failure of students as a sad day for professional legal education in the country and a day of shame.

Mr Gyamfi said that had happened because the examination system, which had been put in place by the General Legal Council was a failure.

“This is not the true performance of students who sat for the examinations, something is not right, something is wrong and there are fundamental flaws, which must be checked”, he said.

The school is the only institution in the country that provides training for law graduates in the Barrister at Law programme.

The mass failure by the students comes at a time Parliament is seeking to legalise the entrance exams and interview processes instituted as part of the admission procedures to the Ghana School of Law.

General Legal Council

The General Legal Council, the body that oversees legal education and profession in Ghana, has mounted a vehement defence for the maintenance of entrance exams.

It argues the exams and interviews are to ensure higher standards in legal education.

 But Professor Kwaku Asare, who is on a campaign against the entrance exams, posted on his Facebook page that the mass failure of the law students was proof that the Bar exam, as currently administered by the illegal IEB, was a poor assessment tool or that the Ghana School of Law was incapable of training LLB graduates or both.

“The unruly conduct of the GLC continues unabated as only 91 out of 474 LLB graduates, selected based on the unlawful entrance examinations and interviews, are deemed qualified to be called to the Bar,” he posted.

Overthrowing constitution

“Not only did the unruly GLC unlawfully overthrow the constitution on admission (LI 1296) and confiscate the intellectual property of 3,000 law graduates but it also has given itself immunity from accountability,” he insisted.

He said this was one more proof that the entrance examinations and interviews were not just illegal and unethical, but they were also entirely non-diagnostic.