The results of Kenya School of law done in November were released on Tuesday and information obtained indicate that out of about 1,500 candidates, only 290 qualified. This therefore means that only eighty-two percent of those who did the bar exams failed. This also confirms that 18 per cent of those who sat the one-year post-graduate diploma programme qualify to practise law. The rest will re-sit.
Chief executive Mercy Wambua said yesterday that a task force set up in May last year to investigate the issue is expected to hand in its report in three weeks. A report by a task force chaired by lawyer Fred Ojiambo released in 2017 shows that from 2009 to 2016 only 7,530 out of 16,086 students passed the bar exams while 8,549 failed. That is a failure rate of 53 per cent. The worrying trend has forced the Law Society of Kenya to start investigations into the mass failure.
“This matter has continued to shock us and we are keen to get to the bottom of it,” she said. The task force chaired by lawyer Esther Chege was set up in line with a judgment issued in 2017 by Justice John Mativo who ordered investigations into the large number of failures at KSL.Those who fail are allowed to re-take the exams within five years. The statistics indicate that of all the 1,628 students who re-sat the exams, only 186 passed. That means a staggering 89 per cent of students sitting the exams for at least the second time failed. KSL is the only bar school in Kenya.
Its exams are set and marked by the Council for Legal Education. Students who will opt to have their scripts remarked will have to fork out Sh64 million in total. Re-sitting a single paper costs Sh10,000 while a re-mark is Sh15,000. There are nine papers. Yesterday, KSL chief executive officer Henry Mutai said claims of high failure rates are misleading. He however said following outcry in 2017 the school has contracted the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis to carry out an independent evaluation.
“It can’t be that students who throughout their learning have been high performers can just become dump at a post-graduate diploma level. It’s unfair. Some elitist forces in the legal profession are using backdoor methods to determine who joins their club. This will lock out sons and daughters of the poor,” he said. After completion of an undergraduate degree in law, it’s a mandatory for students to get admission to KSL to be entered into the roll of advocates.
Last year’s results showed some students failed all the nine units offered. In September 2015, the Council for Legal Education declared Moi University, one of Kenya’s oldest universities, unfit to teach law for being poorly equipped and having inadequate staff.