Prof. Aaron Mike Ocquaye, Speaker of Parliament
Students of the Ghana School of Law have resolved to march ensemble to present a petition to the Speaker of Parliament over the continuous failing of students in their final exams.
The petition is to ask the Speaker of the House Prof. Aaron Mike Ocquaye to set up a committee to look into reasons why the number of students who fail the final Bar Exams kept increasing every year.
The decision was arrived at by the student body at a forum held on the Makola campus where students deliberated on ways to resolve the situation which they say is worrisome.
Subsequently, a five-member committee has been set up by the Student Representative Council (SRC) to come up with the petition, plans and its execution by close of day today.
The petition was occasioned by the mass failure in the Bar Exams that hit the school this year, the largest in the history of the school.
Out of 465 who sat for the Bar Exams released by the Independent Examination Committee (IEC) of the General Legal Council (GLC), only a paltry 64 of them passed representing nine per cent, with as many 284 students repeating the entire academic year.
Out of the figure, another 177 students have been referred to retake the exams.
The figures represent a sharp drop in the percentage number of students who passed the examination last year – 18%.
The students have therefore expressed worry about the worrying trend as they are of the view that “something must be wrong with the systems and the administration of the school”.
The forum addressed by the SRC President, Emmanuel Kobby Amoah, hope to get different personalities from various backgrounds as signatories to it.
The forum also considered the possibilities of having the Legislative Instrument (LI) regulating the running of the school amended to address some of their challenges.
The students also expressed worry about how their lecturers are left out of the final Bar Exams which is conducted by the IEC on behalf of the GLC.
Other concerns expressed by the students include the ‘killer fee’ of GH¢3,000 a student has to pay to have a single paper remarked.
They also raised concerns about the 21-day period within which a student can call for a remarking of failed or referred paper, saying it is not sufficient.
Again, the students raised issues with the failure of the school to provide them with their raw marks in each subject, which they say would serve as a guide in deciding which paper to request to be remarked.
The law students are also planning to boycott lectures if nothing is done about their concerns.
Meanwhile, lecturers of the school are at loggerheads with the GLC over the administration of the school.
An academic board meeting held on February 26, 2019, ended inconclusively and will resume today.
By Gibril Abdul Razak