Law students on a 'red week' protest over exams failures

Law students in Ghana have started a "red week" protest to push for reforms in the legal education system in Ghana. 

The red week which started on Monday September 30, 2019 will be followed with a street protest on October 7, 2019, according to the students.

The protest is as a result of the mass failure of students who sat for the 2019 entrance examinations to the Ghana School of Law. 

Out of the about 1800 students who wrote the entrance exams, only 128 passed.

This has generated a public discussion with some suggesting that the General Legal Council (GLC) was deliberatly capping admissions into the law school for professional studies, after which qualified students are called to the bar.

Some groups, including the Economic Fighters League have pledged support to join the demonstration. 

In a radio interview on Accra-based Starr FM on Monday, Haldi Yakubu described as the Fighter General for the Economic Fighters League said, “It is necessary for pressure to be brought upon them [General Legal Council] to do the right thing.

"In that, whatever they are doing is not isolated from the general oppressed young students and generally young people are facing in this country.

“Therefore, it is imperative that every young person in this country, every student in this country, everybody that has hope for a better system in this country needs to join them in the demonstration.

“And send a message to those at the top there, that the young people of this country are awakening and are no longer prepared to sit down and allow themselves to be oppressed in a manner the General Legal Council has done over the years. ”[SIC].

Meanwhile, the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Alban Kingsford Bagbin, has described the mass failure of the students as an indictment on the lectures.

To him, although it was the responsibility of the General Legal Council to ensure that quality lawyers were produced, the mass failure of the students during the entrance exams was not the solution, Mr Bagbin also said in a radio interview with Accra based Starr FM.