Legal practitioner and former parliamentary hopeful of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Rainer Akumperigya has asserted that Ghana is losing out hugely as result of its failure to expand access to legal education in the country.
According to Dr. Akumperigya, the country would have been raking in billions of additional annual revenues and presented with an opportunity to improve the quality of legal education offered in the various law faculties and the Professional law school if it had opened up access to legal education.
He added that expanding access to legal education in the country would have ensured adherence to the rule of law as many people would have easy access to legal services and would have also given all Ghanaians interested in pursuing law an opportunity to be trained in the country so that they are not compelled to seek such education elsewhere.
“If the law faculties were to run professional law courses besides LLBs, they would each submit an annual list eligible to sit a national Bar exam. Law schools can then be ranked annually according to how many of their graduates pass the Bar exams
This will enhance competition and quality. Choice of law school and prestige will no longer be based on age and longevity of a law faculty, but on the basis of annual BAR exams performance. This way, educational rights will be restored, revenues will soar. Access to lawyers and potentially the rule of law will operate. It will also stop the absurdity of compelling our compatriots to seek legal education in the Gambia, Rwanda and elsewhere and save hard earned foreign exchange that goes with it” he stated.
Dr. Akumperigya believes the decision of the General Legal Council to stick to the current monopolized legal education system instead of heeding to calls to make the system competitive by granting accreditation to other institutions to offer professional law courses is depriving the country of the best of legal education and substantial revenues needed for development.
“Last year’s law school fees was GHc15,600. If all 1,289 examinees who passed this year’s extrance exam are admitted, that would be GHC 20,108,400. With a similar number in Part 2, the law school will gross over GHC 40m this year.
Holding fees and admission numbers constant, the school grosses over GHC 100m in just five years! Imagine you apply 5%-10% fee increment and admission numbers over the same period and you are in the region of Ghc 200m! Now, apply this to 5 law schools/faculties. Ghc1 Billion per annum! These are the sort of figures our leaders mortgage our natural resources and future to external lenders for,” he estimated.
He called on the Legal Council to relook at its stance on the matter, stating “Progressive and democratic societies embrace opportunities for openness, expansion and growth. The GLC should do same”.
The legal practitioner said this while reacting to the recent mass failure of students who sat for the Ghana School of Law 2021 Entrance Examination.
Of the 2,824 LLB holders who sat for the examination, only 790 representing 28 percent are said to have passed the exams and have since gained admission while the remaining 72 percent denied entry to the Law School.
This has ignited calls for the expansion of access to legal education in the country. Many particularly legal practitioners who are making these calls believe the criteria for assessing prospective law students is flawed and deliberately designed to restrict entry into the legal profession hence, the ritual mass failures recorded in the Entrance Exams.
