Why National Open University Graduates May Not Be Admitted Into Law School.

For teeming students in the Law Faculty of the National Open
University of Nigeria (NOUN), the possibility of getting admission
into the Nigerian Law School after graduation has remained a matter of
conjecture. Though the university authorities have given assurances
that it would happen, there is no evidence it would happen soon.
Interestingly, in an interview with former President of the Nigerian
Bar Association (NBA) and the Chairman, Council of Legal Education
(CLE) (the body vested with the power to admit students to the Law
School), Chief O.C.J. Okocha (SAN), insists NOUN students can't be
admitted into the Law School for now until certain issues are sort
out. He also spoke on the falling standard of legal education and the
last Call to Bar ceremony held in November 2013 in Abuja.
ON why the CLE is dilly-dallying in approving the National Open
University of Nigeria Law graduates for the Law School, he stated: "It
is because of the way we teach at the Law School, which is clinical.
We do not believe that law is a course that should be learnt by
correspondence. You have to be physically there and interact with the
teacher, interact with your fellow students, participate in what we
call moot and mock trials; see how court operates, go to law firms and
see how lawyers operate in their firms. You can't do those by
correspondence. You can't see a lawyer addressing a court by
correspondence. Even if you see it on television, it is not the same
as seeing it actually happening in the open court. So that is the
reason we said we cannot allow the National Open University for now to
run courses in law. Things may change later when we are satisfied that
they would be able to give their students what we think students at
the undergraduate level need to obtain a proper LLB."
Responding on the argument that the Law School is a leveller, which
admits from different law faculties and allows them to compete among
themselves, he objects: "Worldwide, for you to be admitted into the
Nigerian Law School, we have to be satisfied that the university that
awarded you the LLB degree is a proper university. We don't admit
people who got their LLB degree by correspondence course. We have the
list of accredited universities worldwide. And if we are in doubt, we
may even write to the universities and ask them to furnish us with a
full list of their curriculum and the core subjects they offer for the
LLB degree."
Talking about allowing NOUN students to be admitted into the Law
School and see if they would pass the examinations there, he said: "We
are already having difficulties in the number we are admitting. Each
university has a quota so that the facilities of the six campuses can
accommodate them. So if we allow a floodgate, everybody comes into the
Law School, where will they sit to receive tuition, where would they
sit to participate in mock trials and moot. So things are being
rationalised such that we can take in what we can manage."
Why can't the NOUN be given quota as well? He responds: "No, no, no as
long as they are running correspondence course, they can't get a
quota; they can't get accreditation from the Council of Legal
Education to operate a law faculty. And because their teaching is by
correspondence, we do not think that that should be the standard of
teaching for anybody obtaining an LLB degree."
On the fact that Open University law faculty has jettisoned
correspondence and electronic examinations, he responds: "I don't know
about that. But I am telling you that Open University is running its
courses by correspondence and we will not accept that; and we will not
accredit them until they have proper teaching method that the Council
of Legal Education can be satisfied that it is adequate and sufficient
to ensure that a student coming with an LLB from an Open University is
duly possessed of that degree.

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