- About one-third fails Bar Exam. Need for holistic approach to academic and vocational training for lawyers
The rate of failure in bar exams has been discouraging for the past three cycles. In April 2016, failure rate was 23.6%; in September 2016, 17.8%, and 28% in April 2017, with 6.4% obtaining conditional pass. Out of 2,125 candidates for the April 2017 examination, 1,393 passed and 596 failed. Given that admission to the Bar is a precondition for practicing law and that Law School exam is a test of competence of law graduates to practice the profession, taxpayers deserve to worry about cost-effectiveness of funds allocated to law schools to prepare students for the important exam. This year’s result calls for scrutiny of causes of failure of nearly one out of three examinees.
What in the distant past was taken for granted by citizens: government’s financial and moral commitment to quality across the spectrum has declined to the point of becoming a perennial national problem. High failure rate in the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), National Examinations Council (NECO) and Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examinations was the first to surface, now followed by growing rate of failure in higher-level professional examinations.
With about 30% failure rate in qualifying exam for admission to the Bar, people should shudder about true level of competence in other professions that do not conduct pre-practice qualifying exams, such as medicine, pharmacy, nursing, engineering, etc. With 66% success rate, it is logical to assume that the problem must go beyond the Law School. It signals serious cracks in the educational system, especially guarantee of quality in academic training of law graduates in the country’s universities.
The saying that nobody plants hot pepper and harvests cool cucumber is now in evidence in the country’s educational sector. Inadequate attention to the sector now shows its negative effects in professional fields. For instance, while UN benchmark of 26% of national budget of developing countries applies to Nigeria, federal/state allocations to education for the past decade average 15%. Federal allocation to the sector for 2017 is 6.01% (N448.01 billion out of a budget of N7.30 trillion). Budget allocation to education has never been higher than 8% for the past two decades. Universities are underfunded and teachers are under-motivated. Poor funding of universities sparks intermittent strikes and closure of campuses. Despite this, policy about structure of tertiary education changes by the day. With over 100 universities, the federal Government remains enthusiastic about converting polytechnics and colleges of education to universities, mostly without national debate.
Furthermore, private universities that account for majority of tertiary institutions, like public ones, are not regulated efficiently. Lack of adequate facilities in both public and private universities are too obvious. Academic quality assurance processes that used to be hallmarks of rigorous undergraduate training are now in decline. For example, most universities have jettisoned external examination system, which had served as quality control mechanism in undergraduate training for decades. Libraries are shadows of what they used to be while opportunities to supplement library facility with digital library are smashed by lack of electricity, despite drop in cost of information technology across the globe.
In addition, academic regulatory mechanism is perceived by most stakeholders to be inefficient and unreliable. Anecdotes about accreditation of universities and of specific disciplines, such as law, medicine, and engineering are not complimentary. Budgets allocated to hospitality by institutions awaiting accreditation are typically outlandish. Every year, candidates for admission are waiting for new cut-off for admission to tertiary institutions, which usually turns out to be lower than in previous years.
These lapses point to neglect of the source of development and excellence: high quality education and training that produces high professionalism. Governments relish creating high rhetoric about importance of education, without paying adequate attention to what makes education important in the modern world: adequate funding of hardware and software to facilitate teaching and learning.
Nigeria cannot afford to waste resources on professionals: lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, engineers, technologists who need to take many re-sit exams before qualifying to practice. We call on federal and state governments to provide immediate leadership for comprehensive reform of education. Good rhetoric about education may be easy politics, but it is not good policy.
