Why do many students fail the Bar examination at the Nigerian Law School?
Director-General Olanrewaju Onadeko tells Eric Ikhilae how to improve performance and plans to modify the school’s curriculum.
What is your assessment of the performance of students in this year’s Bar examinations?
The results of the Bar examinations were released last Thursday. There were two examinations. One was held in April. That was the Bar re-sit examinations. The second was Bar examination for the April 2014 set.
The two results came out the same day. The re-sit students recorded 60.2 percent outright pass, 3.6 percent conditional pass and 36.2 percent were unsuccessful. This is a great improvement from what we had last year.
What was responsible for the improvement?
One factor that we believe had contributed to this improvement was the mandatory eight-week revision course. The Council of Legal Education (CLE) prescribed that every student, willing to undertake the re-sit examination, should come back to school and go through the eight weeks’intensive coaching period.
That was held between February and April of this year, before their examination. I think the result was because of the intensive training for those who are yet to pass the Bar final examinations after one or more attempts.
What are the details of the results?
For the regular students, that is, those who came in April 2014, their performance was 68.5 per cent outright pass, 2.9 per cent conditional pass, with 28.6 percent not making it.
The total number of those who sat for the examination is 2,852. Of that number, four made First Class, 109 Second Class Upper, 418 came out with Second Class Lower and 1, 422 passed. Eighty-three had conditional pass, while 815 were unsuccessful.
That is a good result. Put together, a little over 70 percent passed. We are happy for the First Class candidates in particular and other candidates that passed the examinations.
Their Call-to-Bar will be held here in Abuja from October 20 to 22. Interestingly, of the four First Class candidates, three are women. So, it appears the women are doing better than the men at the top level. We hope the men will not allow the women to overtake them outrightly in the near future.
What major innovations have you introduced in the training of students since you assumed office as the DG?
Yes, we have put in place several improved mode of training. There is what we called class room solution, which is being put in place for us by the Nigerian Communication Satellite,which is a parastal of the Federal Government, to enable us have total link with our campuses.
That means, no campus will be deprived of the expertise of the members of the profession, who may come to the school, in a structured manner. We plan to do it to interact with the students. The presentation will be held and the students from all the campuses can be part of it, no matter which of the campuses, irrespective of the campus the programme is being beamed out.
Now, that is going to be useful for us. Hitherto, some campuses have been at a disadvantage, while others are so lucky. Expectedly, Lagos and Abuja campuses have always had the benefit of the senior members of the profession, either from the Bar or the Bench coming to share ideas with our students.
Other campuses have not been so lucky. Though they do have their own fair share. Most law firms in Nigeria are located in Lagos, Abuja, Port Hacourt and Kaduna. It is always easier for practitioners and other members of the profession to be in Lagos and Abuja for obvious reasons.
So, we are bridging that gap now, in which case, all students of the Nigerian Law School will have the same level of exposure to the expertise of these senior members of the profession.
Are there plans to modify the school’s curriculum as well?
Yes, we are also restructuring our curriculum.
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