The Deputy Ranking Member of the Constitutional, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament, Francis-Xavier Sosu, has petitioned the Speaker for a probe into the mass failure that was recorded in the 2021 law school entrance examinations.
The 2021 Ghana School of Law entrance exams saw 28 percent of the LLB candidates gain entrance to Ghana’s only institution for training lawyers.
790 out of 2,824 candidates passed the exam organized earlier this year.
Though the pass rate is in line with previous years, except for 2020, where 1,045 students out of 2,763 passed.
However, the human rights lawyer, Francis-Xavier Sosu, in his petition to the Speaker of Parliament, said investigations must be instituted into the poor performance.
According to him, this will afford the country the opportunity to know if the scores are based actual performance of students during examinations or a lack of infrastructure to accommodate more people.
“Article 37(1) of the 1992 Constitution provides that the State shall endeavor to secure and protect a social order founded on the ideals and principle of freedom, equality, justice, probity, and accountability as enshrined in Chapter 5 of this Constitution; and in particular, the State shall direct its policy towards ensuring every citizen has equality of rights, obligations, and opportunities before the law.”
“As such, there is the need for investigations to ascertain whether or not the pass rates and scores are based on the actual performance of students during examinations, or as a result of lack of available infrastructure to accommodate the excess numbers, hence this petition.”
This action comes after the Students Representative Council of the Ghana School of Law called for a national dialogue to be held on the performance of candidates in the law school entrance examination.
Speaking to Citi News, the SRC President of the Ghana School of Law, Wonder Victor Kutor, said a major concern was the period of time students had to prepare.
Perhaps, students could wait a year before writing the exams, Mr. Kutor suggested.
“You have a situation where students who graduated at the LLB level in July write the exams in August. So technically, they have just one month to prepare.”
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