Investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni
• Journalist Manasseh is convinced the Law School mass failure is due to capacity constraints
• He believes the General Legal Council is deliberately limiting the number of qualified candidates
• Only 28% of candidates for this year’s Law School entrance exam passed
Investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni has described as wrong, the tagging of persons who failed in the 2021 Ghana School of Law Entrance examination as failures.
According to results released by the General Legal Council for this year’s entrance examination, only 790 candidates representing 28% of the 2,824 total candidates passed.
This development has led to critics of the Ghana School of Law admission process and requirement heavily criticising the General Legal Council for deliberately limiting the number of qualified persons.
Commenting on the pass rate for this year’s examination, Manasseh in a Facebook post sighted by GhanaWeb argued that the decision to limit the number of qualified candidates is because of capacity constraints and not necessarily because the candidates failed the exam.
“The law students aren’t dumb. But every year, we’re made to believe they are, and that’s why they “fail” in their numbers when they sit the entrance exams to enter the Ghana School of Law.
“There isn’t enough space at the Ghana School of Law to accommodate all those who want to pursue the professional course. It’s just like medical school. So, a system has been developed to rank and keep some out,” he wrote.
According to Manasseh, people are able to pass in chemistry as a subject, hence it will be unfounded for one to argue that the candidates who had all passed their LLB certification from various universities could end up failing the GLC’s Law School entrance exam.
“To tag those who have been denied entry as having failed isn’t accurate. If someone has studied and passed all their papers at the University of Ghana Law School, for instance, the entrance examination cannot be a better assessment of their intelligence and their ability to study and become a lawyer,” he argued.
To buttress his point, Manasseh indicated that some candidates who have in the past failed the entrance exam have gone outside the country to study law and were successful but pointed out that those who did not have the financial muscle missed out on such an opportunity.
“Many of those who are denied admission and called failures often go outside of the country to study what they would have studied at the Ghana School of Law. They then come back to pay heavily and write examinations at the Ghana School of Law and are called to the bar in Ghana. Those who don’t have the resources to take this long and expensive detour will have their dreams of becoming lawyers killed.”
The journalist in his post called for the creation of a more opened legal education system that creates opportunities for interested persons to achieve their dreams instead of making it look like they are dumb and failures.
“Let’s create the opportunity for people to achieve their dreams and stop creating the impression that they’re dumb.
“Chemistry koraa amanfuo paase na law,” he stated.