1,130 will be allowed to sit for supplementary exams
Law Development Center that offers post graduate course for lawyers before they are enrolled as advocates of the courts of Judicature and allowed to practice law in Uganda has recorded an unprecedented failure rate of 67% in the recently conducted bar-course examinations.
According to an official statement released by the Director of LDC , Mr. Frank Nigel Othembi, only 211 ( 6-distrinction, 34 -2nd class upper , 69- 2nd class lower and 102 -pass)- students passed the one year course out of 1,682 who sat the exams at the Kampala and Mbarara campuses, recording a 67% failure rate for those who sat for the dreaded- tough course. Some 1,130 students will be allowed to sit for supplementary exams beginning June 14th 2021.
At least 332 students who failed three out of the five core subjects have been discontinued but will be allowed to re-apply for fresh admission for the bar course. Othembi ,attributed the poor performance of the students to the Covid -19 challenges including on-line learning which was being introduced for the first time.
He also said that the high failure rate was also due to the fact that students were not subjected to pre-entry exams which were suspended in the academic year 2019 following court cases challenging the admission process and that the students were unable to cope with the high demands of the bar course.
“Globally the bar course is very demanding ,grueling and full time . Some students did not give it due focus ,” Othembi explained adding that ,a few students have incomplete results which need verification before graduation.
But some education experts have questioned the methods of teaching applied at LDC and the qualification of the lecturers . The experts for instance questioned whether the law experts who are teaching at LDC have trained in Andragogy, Pedagogy and Assessment of students.
“ In brief, do they have any postgraduate training in education to enable them teach and carryout assessment effectively?? With this failure rate, I’ll take particular interest and find out what goes on at LDC,” one education expert at Makerere university College of education who declined to be named stated .
However , some law lecturers attributed the poor performance at LDC – to the poor quality of training the law students receive from their undergraduate courses in their respective universities.
