Students of the GIMPA law school in Accra have staged a protest against the compulsory long essays graduating students are made to write before they exit.
According to the students, they are not prepared adequately for the research work but are forced to undertake them.
They have listed unavailability of supervisors, Limited time for submission of work and Lack of coordination among group members regarding meetings, as basis for their protest.
They also claim “Students were not taken through any research course ( Research Methodology) and no allocated time table to meet supervisors”.
But in a response, the dean of the law faculty said: “Our accreditation documents require every single final year student to undertake a long essay. Indeed, in the first graduating class of the Faculty of Law (i.e. Class of 2012/13) every student wrote a long essay.
“Requiring every student to undertake a long essay as we did in 2012/13 placed a severe strain on the teaching resources of the Faculty of Law. The administration of the Faculty of Law decided to reduce this burden by making the long essays an elective for a few selected students – alternating it with the International Trade. This practice began with the 2013/14 final year class and continued until the 2016/17 academic year.
“In 2016, the process of re-accrediting the Evening LLB Program of the Faculty of Law was initiated by the National Accreditation Board (NAB). This process included a site visit by a panel of legal academics to review our overall practices and ensure general accreditation compliance. A query was raised about the failure to ensure that all students in the evening program at GIMPA Law Faculty wrote long essay”.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com
