General Legal Council fingered in exam leakage

A US-based Ghanaian professor of law, Prof. Stephen Kwaku Asare has accused the General Legal Council (GLC) and the Independent Examination Committee (IEC) of being behind the leaking of the examination questions for the 2018 entrance exams into the Ghana School of Law.

DAILY GUIDE had reported on Monday, that the Ghana School of Law entrance examination organized by the GLC on Friday, July 27, 2018, was leaked.

It was reported that moments before the writing of the exams, the question paper and its accompanying marking scheme were in circulation on social media.

Reports had it that the leaked question, which was a compulsory one, is a case study requiring candidates to identify infractions in a contract between a construction firm and a hotel.

But speaking on the issue during a live radio interview with Joy FM, Prof. Kwaku Asare explained that the students should not be blamed for the leakage but rather some persons associated with the IEC and the GLC.

According to him, “Clearly, we should not blame the students. The person or persons who leaked the exams are persons associated with the Independent Examination Committee and or the General Legal Council.”

Small body

He wondered why a small body like the IEC has woefully failed over the years to creditably conduct the entrance examination.

The law professor stressed that “The Independent Examination Committee (IEC) is not some big organization like the West African Examination Council where sometimes exams can leak.”

He reiterated: “You have a very small committee and they are supposed to write exams and 1,800 students all over the country converge at one place in Ghana, Accra Legon. And we have a leakage; that should never happen.”

‘Heads must roll’

The law professor has therefore called on President Akufo-Addo and Parliament to hold the Legal Council and the IEC to account, saying “We cannot allow them to continue to experiment with the lives of so many young people.”

According to him, “So it is time for somebody, the President, Parliament, somebody who is a courageous leader to say enough is enough. Let us hold this General Legal Council, let us hold this Independent Examination Committee accountable.”

Prof. Kwaku Asare has been battling the GLC and the IEC over the conduct of the exams, petitioning Parliament in January this year to withdraw the Legislative Instrument (LI) which was seeking to legitimize the entrance examination into the Ghana School of Law.

Dissolve IEC

Meanwhile, a former Director of the Ghana School of Law now with Mountcrest University College in Accra, Ansah Asare, has called for the immediate dissolution of the IEC as a body.

Also speaking to Joy FM over the examination scandal, Mr. Asare said “If every year, since the establishment of the IEC in 2012, questions have been leaking and yet the body continues to exist then we have a problem.”

Thus, he called “on the General Legal Council to dissolve the body immediately that is if the members of the IEC do not resign. The entrance exam should be cancelled and let’s see what happens next”

Scrap GLC!

He suggested that, “The government as a matter of urgency should amend the Legal Profession Act, and scrap the General Legal Council as the body responsible for legal education in this country.”