The mass failure at the Kenya School of Law points to a crisis
in the training of the country’s legal minds. As a report by the Council
for Legal Education shows, more than half of the 16,000 students — 53
per cent — who sat the Bar examinations between 2009 and 2016 failed.
This dismal performance raises grave questions about how they acquired their law degrees in the first place.
It
also calls for a thorough investigation in the quality of students
admitted to the universities, the teaching and tests they administer and
the quality of the lecturers.
Significantly, most of
these failures are from public universities — meaning their education
has largely been funded by taxpayers and pointing to a steep decline in
standards at some of the country’s oldest institutions.
The
exponential expansion of higher education in the past two decades and
the rush for funds to keep them afloat may have created opportunities
for the universities to emphasise on quantity rather than quality,
leading to the deplorable performance in exams.
It is commendable that the CUE has gone public rather than hush up the crisis.
It
must demand strict enforcement of standards, investigate the quality of
learning and impose severe penalties on cutting corners. Also, the
universities should review and strengthen their programmes to save their
graduates this ignominy.
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