The National Association of Law students (NALS) is advocating for the adoption of a solicitor’s license for students who do not want to take the professional law course after their bachelor’s degree.
This it believes will ease the pressure on the Ghana Law School, which has become known for its low admission rate.
As over 2,000 students sit for the entrance exam of the Ghana Law school today, August 25, 2020, a convener of the association, Regina Amegah, speaking to Citi News reiterated calls for the scrapping of the entrance examination.
“We do not necessarily support the idea of entrance exams because we feel that there can be better ways of enrolling people into the professional law school without necessarily going through the entrance exam. But we are faced with the situation where 2,720 students are eager to enter the professional law school and the only legal avenue now is to write the entrance exam.”
She also advocated for the introduction of a solicitor’s examination for people who do not wish to practise in the law courts.
“We should rather allow the faculty to run the professional course and then afterwards, just like the way we do in WASSCE, the General Legal Council can have the bar license for all those who want to take the bar exams and then they can be called to the bar. In the interim, they can now make the solicitor’s license available so that those who want to be solicitors right after the course and do not have the dream of going to the bar can also use their license to do any form of legal work other than going to court. There are a lot of avenues we can explore. The entrance exam is not the answer because people are really passionate about the profession. This is not just an academic issue, it is a justice issue.”
