The Ghana National Association of Law Students has called for the withdrawal of an advertisement for the Ghana School of Law entrance examinations.
The association feels that the advert, published in the 11 June 2020 edition of the Daily Graphic by the Independent Examination Committee (IEC) of the General Legal Council (GLC), is lacking in critical details and in need of amendment.
In a statement, the association noted that the advert does not indicate a date. Unlike in previous years, as in “2018 and 2019, where 65 and 53 days’ notice was given, the 2020 advert, Paragraph B, has no date at all”.
The association called for the advert’s “withdrawal and amendment to disclose an ascertained date, time and venue” before it is republished.
“Sufficient notice, including date and venue, is a right, and not a privilege. It is a reasonable expectation and fair to persons desiring to sit the exams,” it stressed.
The law students say a minimum of 50 days’ notice is also “the reasonably established practice hitherto, which projected points to August 2020”.
The association remains distrustful of the IEC and “finds the advertised aberration a cause for worry and is unable to accept same”. It insists that the lack of sufficient notice means the advert “is defective and/or allows capriciousness, which GLC must guard against if it is committed to doing substantial justice”.
Admissions criteria needed
As part of its call for transparency, the association called on the GLC to declare the number of students it expects to admit “and the criteria used for the determination/estimation and this should be the norm for subsequent years”.
“Regulation 1 of LI2355, discretional in totality, reasonably indicates, as NALS expects, that the admission process is for GLC firstly to determine and announce publicly the number to be admitted in each academic year; secondly, to allocate quotas to all law faculties, together with; thirdly, conduct the entrance exam for the admission.
“GLC is to exercise all three discretions together or none at all,” the association outlined.
The law students also called on the GLC to include its pass mark in the notice “to end or avoid any randomness with the pass mark”.
It said that the GLC could “later come out to announce 60% as the pass-mark in order to avoid admitting students”.
