The National Association of Law Students (NALS) has hit the streets of Accra to demonstrate over the Ghana School of Law entrance exams failures.
The aggrieved candidates are accusing the General Legal Council (GLC) of their inability to gain admission following a new quota system.
The pass mark for the entrance exams has always been 50% in both sections, but for this year’s exams, the rule has been changed, so candidates have to score at least 50% in both sections.
Clad in red and black attire on Wednesday, October 20, the students hoisted placards with inscriptions expressing their displeasure at the Black Star Square in Accra.
Some of them wrote, ‘Stop traumatising law students’, ‘We did not fail,’ and other messages on their signages.
Amid drumming and chanting, the affected students insisted that the new rule regarding the pass mark was unknown to them before they took the exams.
On reaching the Parliament House, the chants grew louder as the protestors sat on the street.
They are also demanding reforms to the country’s legal education.
However, just about six executives of the National Association of Law Students (NALS) were allowed into Parliament’s premises to present the petition.
The 5-page document called for the GLC to “do right by these 499 candidates who passed the 2021 entrance exam and admit them IMMEDIATELY into the professional law course at the school.”
On the results in contention, NALS insisted that the Attorney General orders that GLC “within 7 days to present (a) procedures for remarking of entrance exam scripts and (b) regulations specifying how qualified Law faculties can be designated for students to have tuition for the professional law course in accordance with Articles 23, 25 and 38
of the 1992 constitution and Sections 13(2) and 14 of Act 32.”
They also demanded that the remarking fee at the Ghana School of Law be reduced and pegged at GHC300 per paper.
Meanwhile, Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu wants President Akufo-Addo to establish a legal education review commission to evaluate current regime to allow for more access.
