Law School failures: Where are your facts? – Kwaku Azar challenges Akufo-Addo

US-based Academic and Law School reform activist Prof Stephen Kwaku Asare popularly known as Kwaku Azar has dared President Akufo-Addo to provide the facts based on which he concluded that Law school “pupils themselves” are to blame for the record failures in Law School Exams in Ghana, MyNewsGh.com reports.

President Akufo-Addo last week commented on the issue of the massive student failure at the Ghana School of Law saying it could be as a result of non-adherence to examination directions.

He debunked what he described as baseless allegations that the failures are deliberate attempts to cut down on the number of lawyers produced in the country.

“So there is pressure on limited resources but it is difficult for people to understand. There is a sense that there are conspiracies to deny some people access,” he said at a meeting with the leaders of the Ghana Bar Association.

He added: “I think all of us have a big responsibility to put the facts out so that people in Ghana can understand that there are no conspiracies and that the results when they come out are perhaps failures of instructions or the pupils themselves and not necessarily because there is some sinister manipulation of the system.”

But reacting to the President’s comments, Kwaku Azar believes it is fair the President discloses the facts he has that made him draw that conclusion.

“What facts are his excellency putting out so that misinformed people like me can understand that the high failure rate is due to “failures of instructions or the pupils themselves?” Azar said.

He added further:

“Students and faculty members of today are no less motivated or hardworking than students and faculty members of yore. The students of today have even more to lose because unlike their parents and grandparents they study on their own dough rather than on government’s subsidy.

The indisputable facts are that the system of training lawyers at the School of Law was put in place in the late 1950s and has not changed very much since then such that people from all over the country and foreign countries are still converging at Makola (they added GIMPA and KNUST recently due to agitations) to take courses like accountancy, law practice management and negotiations.

The system is completely outmoded in all its facets and requires fundamental reform not superficial apportioning of blame.

It is the insistence on using this outmoded model in a completely changed environment that creates this conspiracy to fail the students and undermine the lecturers.

I am utterly disappointed and annoyed, especially because he seems not to have taken notice that the GLC routinely violates the law and robs students of their reliance and substantive interest in obtaining professional education.

Legal education reform must be put on the ballot in 2020.”