Over The Purposeful Victimization of Its Students
Sierra Leone Law School Shrouded in Secrecy
The operation of the Sierra Leone Law School administration sanctioned by the Council of Legal Education, otherwise known as the Sierra Leone Law School that is now a subject of several concerns from members of the public especially, students who are victims of its persistent cruel treatment over the years. As many say, it is shrouded in secrecy.
This, according to hundreds of Sierra Leoneans this medium spoke to, is the failure of the school’s authorities to demonstrate transparency in relation to disclosure of grades to students, especially those that have been declared fail. The institution’s state of affairs has now become a nightmare to Sierra Leoneans whenever it comes to the publication of results. The sad thing is that this is a persistent trend which instead of improving is only worsening every year. Members of the public will recall that some five years ago in 2013 the school was enmeshes in some scandal relating to the pilfering of grades by members of the school administration. That resulted in the withdrawal of certificates of practicing lawyers who benefitted from such malpractices, the indictment of the school’s registrar by the ACC and the subsequent retirement of the Chief Justice. Now five years on the school has still not learnt from its mistakes. Every year the school produces far more fails than pass. This brings the competence of the tutors and the administration to question, for these students are coming from competent institutions from Sierra Leone and the diaspora that are recording high success rates.
Many citizens now believe that it is a deliberate act on the part of the school’s authorities to continuously victimizing and frustrates young law graduates, who had spent thousands of dollars/ millions of Leones in their various universities over a four year period only for their dreams to be thrown to the gutters by some mean individuals at the Sierra Leone Law School.
Whilst registering their frustrations, some of the students this medium interviewed opined that the authorities have blatantly refused to be transparent in terms of the grading and publication of results which they say is done with impunity. According to them, the authorities only publish results indicating massive failure without revealing to students the various grades each student has per module as done in every learning institution across the world, including WAEC which releases results on subject basis. ‘’How can they always say, we have 80% failure, without us knowing our grades per module”, one of the students stated frustratingly. Some of the lecturers will tell certain students that they passed their modules but only for the final results to prove otherwise?, Is the Law School now a secret society where one is treated any how and cannot reveal anything done to you inside? In the past they have discovered several mistakes in the collation of grades they have had to republish results to correct such anomalies. Last year the student who eventually came third was initially among the fail category but when his grades were disclosed to him, the mistake was revealed and corrected.
What is also more worrying is the fact that ever since this inhuman treatment of students began at the School, no authority from the Law School has been able to explain the cause of the massive and insistent failure of students to the public nor the reason for certain actions like the hiding of grades from students or the unconstitutional rejection of students with Law degrees. This has therefore left many Sierra Leoneans wondering whether the lecturers of the school are competent enough to teach their students or the school administration is not up to some games.
While the past government was unable to address this ugly situation, it is therefore the expectation of Sierra Leoneans especially, the students, to see that the current government of His Excellency Brig. (Rtd) Julius Maada Bio, do everything possible, since its places premium on education as illustrated in its commendable Free Quality Education Program , to put an end to this wicked act of victimizing and frustrating our young men and women, whose dreams and hopes are been shattered by the inhuman act of the Sierra Leone Law School authorities.
As at press time, efforts to have authorities in Law School to comment on these issues proved futile as no one was available to talk to this writer upon his arrival at the institution. However, this medium is willing to publish the side of the institution should anyone wish to respond to these allegations.
By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara
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