By Mabinty M. Kamara
The Council of Legal Education Sierra Leone has recommended some sweeping reforms for the Sierra Leone Law School, as part of efforts to fix a recurring problem of mass failures which has characterized the only law school in the country.
The Sierra Leone Law School has over the last few years been shrouded in controversies occasioned by the high number of failures it records in its final exams. The situation has raised questions about the quality of learning and the caliber of students who enrolled into the course.
Last year saw one of the worst mass failures, with 91 out of the 179 students who sat to the final Bar exams failing. Some 54 others had references and only 29 passed.
That situation provoked outrage, prompting the Council to launch an investigation into the school in October.
According to a copy of the report by the investigating team seen by Politico, the investigators say the recommendations are aimed at restoring the credibility, values and sanity of the school.
One of the recommendations in the four-page report calls for the school to digitalize its grading system. It also recommends that students be given access to their scripts if they demand for it and it want the school authorities to publish grades of continuous assessment four weeks before the final Bar examination.
A two weeks period should also be given for students to raise up possible errors to their grades, the report says, adding that an IT specialist should be hired to handle the computerization of the records of students.
The Council also recommended tougher entry requirements to deal with the growing number of people seeking to enter the legal profession. This include the possibility of students undergoing an interview and the reintroduction of an entrance exam as part of the application process.
The Council of Legal Education is the body charged with the responsibility of training and educating members of the legal profession in the country.
This investigation was done by five members of the Council and the report was signed by the Chief Justice, Babatunde Edwards.
“As a first step, efforts should be made to verify the information currently by the Sierra Leone Law School. Once verified and imputed, changes should only be made after thorough investigation as to the circumstances for the changes, with the registrar recommending the proposed changes requested by the Examination Officer and approved by the Director,” the report states in part.
It adds: “The IT specialist is expected to set up a portal which will indicate automatically the number of times a student has taken the examination.”
In the aftermath of the mass failure last year, there were complaints that some students wrote reference exams more than the required amount of times that they were supposed to.
The Sierra Leone Law School did not respond to our request for a comment. A call and a text message to the Registrar of the School wasn’t responded to.
In the wake of the report of the mass failure, a row ensued between the Justice Ministry and the Director of the School, who refused to heed an order by the Minister of Justice to proceed on forced leave.
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