Madina MP petitions Speaker over Ghana School of Law mass failure
Francis-Xavier Sosu, the MP for Madina has petitioned the Speaker of Parliament over the recent mass failure in the entrance exams to the Ghana School of Law.
The opposition lawmaker wants Alban Bagbin to order the General Legal Council to submit raw scores of candidates for verification in line with Article 37 (1) of the 1992 Constitution.
Sosu believes a thorough investigation into the cause of the continuous mass failure of students in the entrance examination will help address the problem.
“This is in line with the principles of transparency and accountability and effective separation of powers as guaranteed by the 1992 Constitution of the Republic. The Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee is therefore best placed to investigate this matter as the Committee with oversight responsibility over Legal Education in Ghana.
“As such there is the need for investigations to ascertain whether or not the pass rates and scores are based on actual performance of students during examinations or as a result of lack of available infrastructure to accommodate the excess numbers hence the position,” he stated in the petition.
Below is the full petition:
Over 2000 fail Ghana School of Law entrance exams
A total of 790 students (28%) out of the 2,824 who sat the 2021 Ghana School of Law entrance exams passed, official figures reveal.
The figure is a 10% drop from the total number of LLB candidates who passed in the previous year. A total of 1045 out of 2,763 students passed the 2020 exams.
In 2019, only 128 candidates out of a total of 1,820 passed the exams which has over the years become a matter of national discussion.
Protest
In the past law students have staged open protest against the mass failure presenting petition to Parliament to get the General Legal Council to address what they termed as a “systemic problem” at the Ghana School of Law.
Admission to the Ghana School of Law for professional legal education requires that successful candidates obtain a minimum rank of 50%.
Key among their concerns were the mass failure, the fees charged for resit and remarking, as well as the policy of rewriting all papers if a student fails more than three papers.
