Law school entrance exam discriminatory – Group

A group calling itself the Coalition for the Reform of Legal Education in Ghana has said the writing of entrance exams as a prerequisite for admission into the Ghana School of Law will lead to the disqualification of suitable LLB applicants, thus, discriminatory.

This follows a call for applications from suitably qualified persons into the professional law course by the Independent Examinations Committee of the Ghana Legal Council (GLC) for the 2019/2020 academic year.

The entrance examination is scheduled to take place on Friday, 26 July 2019.

According to the coalition, the action by the two bodies who regulate legal education in the country is unlawful and a disregard for the Supreme Court judgement that declared the examinations unconstitutional.

As part of the admission process, persons are to provide a character reference from a lawyer of not less than 10 years’ standing at the bar, among others and admitted students required to produce a police clearance certificate.

The Convener for the coalition, Mr Kenneth Agyei Koranchie told journalists on Monday, 10 June 2019 that: “Currently, the operative law is LI 2355, that’s the professional law course act that we use today. If you go in there, there’s no such provision, for instance, for producing a police report before you will be admitted to the Ghana Law School.

“The prospect, the concept, the idea of an entrance examination is not good because all across the world, the basic qualification for going ahead to undergo a professional law course is the LLB, all across the world. Ghana is the only country where we have an entrance examination.

“We are saying that the concept of an entrance examination means that some people holding LLBs who are qualified to undertake the professional law course will, through the process of an entrance examination, be disqualified and that is discriminatory”, he told Accra-based Citi FM on Monday, 10 June 2019.