General News of Saturday, 30 October 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2021-10-30Admit 499 students: How Parliament united to demand School of Law acts legally
An aerial shot of Parliamentary session | File photo
• MPs are united in their call for the School of Law to admit some 499 students
• The students claim to have been unfairly denied admission
• Parliament has passed a resolution directing that they are admitted
Parliament on Friday,
Read full articleOctober 29, 2021, united to issue a resolution in respect of 499 Ghana School of Law students who had passed an entrance exam but were denied admission.
The issue has become topical in recent times with the group dragging the General Legal Council to court.
In Parliament, the issue was raised by the Deputy Majority Leader of the House, Alexander Kwamina Afenyo-Markin, which submission was seconded by MPs on both sides of the house.
Isaac Adongo, Bolgatanga Central MP (NDC) moved that the house should adopt a resolution to direct the General Legal Council (GLC) to admit all the students who per the advertised rules of the entrance exams had qualified.
Subsequently, first deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei Owusu, affirmed the resolution and further directed that Godfred Dame, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice should see to it that the resolution is fully implemented.
What some of the MPs said about the issue
For Afenyo-Markin who moved the motion on the issue, he averred that the posture of the GLC was 'repugnant and lacked certainty.'
“We cannot create all manner of questionable schemes around how we mark scripts and determine those who have passed and not passed.
“If we increase access to LLB studies and want to limit access to the professional law course then what are we doing to ourselves.”
He added: “Just as politicians, when we get it wrong they tell us, we are telling the Ghana School of Law they are continuously frustrating students, they are making the study of law unattractive.”
For his part, Deputy Minority Chief Whip, Alhaji Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, stressed that the directive issued per the resolution was not targeted at the judiciary but at the School of Law.
He also wants a probe in relation to the stranded students.
“This is an opportunity for us, as a House, as the Representatives of the People, to probe into the matter to be able to give clear instructions… This is not about the Judiciary but the School of Law.”
“I hope at least for once, the House can stand together and forget about our political parties… This is something that is affecting all our constituents,” he added.
Muntaka agreed with students that it was unfair that the GLC will peg the pass mark at 50 percent and later turn around to shift the goal post.
He tasked the school to employ other innovative ways to remedy the anomaly proferring that if it was about space as has been argued, they should transition to other modes of instruction instead of insisting on regular classroom learning.
