By Kemo Cham & Mabinty M. Kamara
The competence of the administration of the Sierra Leone Law School has come under scrutiny after it registered arguably the worst ever results in the Bar examination since the School was established in nearly 30 years.
Of 179 students who sat to the 2019 exams, only 29 passed. 91 failed, some 54 had references in various modules, while results for five candidates were withheld for unspecified reasons.
“It is the worst ever result from the school,” said Barrister Zachariah Azibo Kanu, a concerned alumnus of the school.
Kanu was part of the batch of 2017, when the school recorded another very poor performance in the examination. He was among the top 25 students that passed at the first attempt. That year 108 students were enrolled into the school, with over 40 references and about that the same number of failures.
The law school is a college specializing in legal education, through which aspiring lawyers must go for a nine-month period of tutoring before being called to the Bar.
The law profession is among the most admired among young Sierra Leoneans. This has over the years led to the mass influx of students for the LLB degree, which is a prerequisite for enrollment into the Law School.
Fourah Bay College (FBC) and the University of Makeni are the top two feeder colleges to the School. A few students come from an affiliate institute of the London College. Njala University is also said to have started a law program, although it is yet to send in any students to the Law School.
FBC is the largest source for the Law School at the moment. This year alone, more than 240 students were enrolled for the LLB program in the University of Sierra Leone constituent college.
Unimak sent in its first batch of law graduates to the law school in 2013, following the establishment of the department of law in 2008. Since then, the Makeni-based institution has steadily increased its share of enrollment and number of passes.
In the year under review, it is widely thought to have performed better than in previous year, in terms of the number of passes.
“It’s a shame and a cause for concern, and this has exposed the rot of our system and continues to show how low we have sunk as a nation that once prides itself in academic excellence,” said Kanu.
Many critics believe the mass failure at the Law School is a deliberate move to curtail the number of people called to the Bar.
But no matter the divergent views, there is a general consensus the problem is deep-rooted and needs to be addressed holistically.
Most of the discussions are on social media, where some have called for investigations. There has particularly been expression of consternation over the role of the school’s administration.
Mr Joseph Kobba, Registrar of the College, declined to comment when contacted by Politico, saying he would need to get permission from his superiors.
Meanwhile, the affected students have been left in a state of confusion.
A somber atmosphere filled the air at the school on Wednesday. Many of the students were in a very devastating state of mind as they approached the notice board to confirm what had been paraded on social media since the results were published on Tuesday. Some of them converged around the school premises in smaller groups, consoling one another and discussing the way forward. Some suggested writing a protest letter to the school’s administration.
“If I am to comment on this issue, I definitely will not be able to hold my tears [back]. We are not in a good state of mind today to discuss this issue with any outsider,” one of the students told Politico, when asked for a comment.
“Today is a sad day for us. Many hopes, dreams and aspirations have been shattered in just a day,” he added.
This is not the first time the Law School has come under scrutiny over its performance or the conduct of the administration.
In 2014 a major scandal rocked the school, raising questions about its credibility. A group of students, who were dissatisfied with their results, had challenged the administration. They were eventually allowed to retake the exams following an investigation.
The following year, the institution was confronted with allegations of favoritism in its admission procedure. Over 50 applicants rejected in the 2014/2015 intake accused the authorities and some highly placed people with influence over the legal profession of plotting to keep a particular class of society out of the profession.
The Sierra Leone Law School has also been in the spotlight for alleged corruption which has seen a former Registrar indicted by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
When last year’s results were released, there were calls for the government to institute an enquiry into the cause of massive failure. There is no indication that any such investigation has so far been conducted.
© 2019 Politico Online
