Mass Failure: General Legal Council perpetrating fraud on students – Former Law school Director

Former Law school Director, Kwaku Ansa Asare has criticized the General Legal Council over the recent mass failure of law students in the country, saying the failure is a fraud and that the Council is deliberately limiting the number of students admitted into the law school.

This follows a mass failure of students in the recent Ghana School of Law entrance exams. Out of 1,820 students who took the entrance exams in July, only 128 passed, translating to a concerning failure rate of nearly 93%. These results follows a similar trend from the Bar exams just a few months prior, where over 90% of students also failed.

The repeated low pass rates have reignited a national conversation about accessibility into the Ghana’s legal education system. A growing number of stakeholders have responded negatively to the mass failure, with Professor Asare's voice joining a growing list of critics.

Speaking to ABC Media Ghana journalist, Amanda Kporwofa in a video interview, Professor Kwaku Ansa Asare expressed his dissatisfaction saying “I can’t understand. As a former director of the law school, I have got to say it nakedly as it is. What they are doing is unbecoming and It is time they stopped.”

He called out the General Legal Council's practices, questioning if the current leadership would have been successful lawyers themselves under such a rigorous system. Professor Asare emphasized the Council's responsibility, stating, “They must be told in plain language what they are doing. What the General Legal Council is doing to prospective student lawyers, If the same thing had been to them, would they be lawyers, would they be judges today...The General Legal Council is abusing the trust the nation has reposed in them. It was time they are told in plain language that they should stop the nonsense because what is going on is nonsensical.”

Although the nation concerned over how the General Legal Council’s rigorous standards could potentially restrict public access to legal representation, the Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo has stated that the mass production of lawyers could potentially decrease the quality and standards of the profession.