Calls mount for investigation of high Law School failure rate

Anger and condemnation have greeted the high failure rate in the just released Law School 2014 final examination results, with stakeholders calling for an urgent and thorough investigation.

While some of those who spoke with BusinessDay blamed the failure on the poor attitude of students to their academic work, a few others said the system must be held responsible for the ugly development which they described as unprecedented.

Out of the total number of 6,883 students that sat for the exam, four had first class, nine had second class upper division, 487 had second class lower, 1,500 graduated with ordinary pass, while 4,883 failed outright. The percentage of failure is over 70 percent.

Ernest Ojukwu, a professor and deputy director-general, Nigerian Law School, Enugu Campus, said the failure rate in the examination reflected the performance of the students because the process of the examination in the Law School was very rigorous.

“If this is the result, it reflects the performance of the students. It is also an outcome of the training programme generally packaged for legal education in the country, starting from the university which is a reflection of the training,” Ojukwu said.

“Legal education in Nigeria is very poor and that is one of the reasons we have been talking about the reform of the training of lawyers in Nigeria,” he added.

On the way forward, Ojukwu said the reform in legal education must be addressed.

“The Council of Legal Education submitted a report of its review of legal education in Law School and some of the things that were suggested in the report have not been implemented. So we can start by going to that report and the issues that have not been implemented, including increasing the teaching staff strength astronomically and training students in small classrooms, so that we can have one-on-one training,” he said.

Taiwo Taiwo, former chairman, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Lagos branch, and currently the national first vice president, NBA, said he was surprised at the massive failure, pointing out that there must be something wrong with the students or the system.

“If people sat for exams and the papers were marked, some passed, some failed, there’s nothing strange about it. But this is the first time the Law School would be recording such level of failure. It means that something is wrong, either with the students or the system. It calls for a review,” Taiwo said.

On the implication of the development for the legal profession, he said: “As far as I am concerned, it is good for the legal profession. We want a situation where the best leave the Law School with good results; it is not just about churning out students. It is in the interest of the profession that the best should come out from the Law School.”

Festus Keyamo, a Lagos lawyer and activist, said it was difficult to make comments on the issue as real statistics on the examination had not been released.

According to him, while it might be easy to blame the poor performance on the distraction of students by social media, it was still too early to draw conclusion on what really went wrong.

“The truth of the matter is that I don’t know what to say. The whole information about the exam is not known yet. Someone said that he sat for the exam but they marked him as absent. We don’t really know what is happening. The Law School needs to come out with a statement,” Keyamo said.

Wahab Shittu, Law lecturer at the University of Lagos, attributed the mass failure to the general decline in the level of skills in legal education.

“It is not that the students are not brilliant, but there is distinction between brilliance and acquisition of relevant professional skills,” he said.

“There is whole lot of difference between theory and practice. What I am saying is that a sizeable number of the people going through courses these days are not properly trained in terms of skills and that result is what we are seeing in the Law School today, which is a reflection of this mass failure,” Shittu said.

He said stakeholders must now begin to worry about not just turning out lawyers, but the critical question should be what type of lawyers that are being produced.

“Are we looking for lawyers who are employable or lawyers who are not employable? Are lawyers ready for the legal market both local and on the international stage? The answer may seem to be no. Now that we have realised this challenge, we need to go back to the drawing board so that we can improve the skills. This will benefit the society in the long run,” he said.

Chris Okeke of Chris Okeke & Co (Shalom Chambers) attributed the massive failure to lack of preparation on the part of the students.

“The students did not prepare for the exam. The Law School I know does not cheat anybody. Those who merit pass are given their marks; there’s nothing like marking anybody down. What the system is telling them is that they should work harder if they want to be lawyers. There is nothing like manage. You must earn your mark,” Okeke said.

“On the contrary, it is a good thing for the country. What it is simply telling us is that the system does not tolerate half-measures and half-baked lawyers. You either make it or you don’t. It is not a system that condones adding marks to aid students to pass. It is either you get the pass mark or you fail. So, the system is protecting the profession by insisting that standard is maintained,” he said.

Zebulon Agomuo & Kelechi Ewuzie