ANNET KARUNGI: Nine months at LDC aren’t enough to address high failure rate
Lira campus according to the LDC, registered the least number of successful students where 79 students passed the Bar Course, 120 were required to sit supplementary while 67 failed the course.
The Head Bar Course at the Law Development Centre (LDC) Annet Karungi, has blamed the high failure rates among students, on the half-baked training and skills lawyers receive at the different Universities, saying the 9months at LDC aren’t enough to address this knowledge and skills gaps.
According to Karungi, the reason why they don’t have 80% of students passing is because they get students from different Universities, with different grounding and training.
“The grounding is extremely different, the curriculum at the different Universities is different and I think this is a concern we have always raised as an Institution. At the moment we admit students from 14 Universities both within and outside the country, many of them have knowledge gaps, so it isn’t easy for us as an institution to use the 9 months to make sure that we address the knowledge and skills gap. This is one of the reasons we still have this kind of percentage,” said Karungi.
Karungi made the remarks while appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, where the Centre had appeared to defend the 2024/25 ministerial policy statement.
Fox Odoi (West Budama North East) wondered why the LDC had omitted information about the performance of students in their performance report to Parliament stating, “They reported that they trained 2000 students but where is the detail? I think in terms of law, we need to see the number of students who passed examinations at first instance, the ones who did supplementary, the ones who failed, that is the sticky issue year in, year out.”
It should be noted that the LDC performance statistics for the year 2022/2023 indicated that at the Mbarara campus, 224 students passed, 286 will have to sit for supplementary exams and 120 failed the course. At the Kampala campus, 398 students passed, 488 were to sit supplementary and 305 failed.
Lira campus according to the LDC, registered the least number of successful students where 79 students passed the Bar Course, 120 were required to sit supplementary while 67 failed the course.
Out of 2,087 students who enrolled for an advocate Bar Course at the Law Development Centre (LDC) in the academic year 2022/2023, only 701 passed, 894 were required to re-sit supplementary exams while 492 completely failed the course.
