Aggrieved candidates of the 2021 Ghana School of Law entrance examination have petitioned the independent Examination Committee of the General Legal Council to demand the admission of all students who obtained the overall 50 percent pass mark during the recently held exams.

The petitioning students also attained the 50 percent mark, but were rejected because they attained less than 50 percent in one of the two sections of the entrance exam.

Ordinarily, admission to the Ghana School of Law for professional legal education requires that successful candidates obtain a minimum rank of 50 percent, but the new directive meant some students were disappointed despite exceeding the 50 percent mark.

In the petition, they are asking the GLC to rescind this directive, which they say “sought to implement a quota system” which has denied 499 of them entry into the School of Law.

They also argued that this directive was not applied in previous years.

“We, therefore, believe this notice, issued under the hand of Mr. Kwesi Prempeh-ECK is an anomaly and must be discarded to preserve the sanctity of your respected committee, as well as its well-established marking scheme, until it is properly reviewed and appropriately communicated for observance and compliance.”

They also complained that the candidates were not aware of these directives.

“All rules and guidelines governing the conduct of the exam must be clearly communicated prior to students sitting the paper and not after the release of exam results, as has just been witnessed.”

“Ultimately, they feel the directive “frowns upon our fundamental human right to education and smacks of discrimination against us, which when left to stand will not only serve as an ugly scar in our legal educational history.”

The 2021 Ghana School of Law entrance exams saw 28 percent of the LLB candidates gain entrance to Ghana’s only institution for training lawyers, with 790 out of 2,824 candidates passing.

The poor pass rate has in the past sparked calls for a reform of legal education in Ghana.

Critics have said the General Legal Council deliberately restricts people from gaining access to legal education.