Just the way i got it:
The Nigerian Law School Released the 2013/2014 August Result. It was a Tsunami! Out of #6000 candidates who registered, about #2172 passed. We are talking of about #4000 mass failures.

Do we say 4000 students payed #300,000 not counting expenses for a year, feeding,books, then prepared to FAIL?

Such MASS BURIAL has NEVER been recorded in the history of Nigerian Law School. So how do we help this students?

Now the questions are:
Is our educational standards dropping or what?

How good is the result of the Bar I (foreign students result)?

Are they trying to reduce the number of lawyers?

Are they trying to tell us that the principles of law has changed?

Or please what do u think, lend ur voice please your view really counts.

lawyers are 2 much in the country,,,dats y some earn meager salaries lyk 11k. And d old selfish ones wont give way 4 d new ones.

Enough of the wailing already! People failed the bar exam, so what? Surely you're not suggesting that, upon the payment of N300,000 as school fees at the Nigerian Law School, a student, by that fact alone, ought to be entitled to enrollment at the Supreme Court! Failure at the bar exam is hardly uncommon, but never has it engendered such a sustained note of petty whining.

Of course everyone is likely to point at the Law School and allege some fantastic plot to which the mass failure must be due. That is because it is far easier to cast oneself as victim than to face the hard, humiliating truth; a significant portion of purported graduates of law are simply not ready for law school. Why, they're barely ready for anything at all! Ours is an age in which university degrees can be bought, and any girl who is so inclined may well have her grades determined by her performance in the sack. If its reputation is anything to go by, the NLS accommodates none of that nonsense.When students who are long unaccustomed to intellectual labour suddenly find themselves in the middle of so rigourous a regime as that of the Nigerian Law School, failure is merely a natural consequence.

Perhaps, as some have alleged, the environment in some campuses may have been a tad inconvenient on account of overcrowding, but about 2000 students did not let themselves be hampered by that. Four of them in fact graduated with the highest honours. If blame is to be apportioned for the mass failure, the students themselves must enjoy a sizeable portion of it.

hmmmm

The whole judicial system needs overhaul

n

I have been trying to be careful about what I say since this issue came up. I still don't know what to say...

@Nickydrake, you have a point. The legal profession need to wear a new look. Infact, a novas homo should be made of the profession. Now that the CLE have decided to raise the bar, they should do something about the living condition of students cos it is hard to attain accademic excellence in an atmosphere of chaos and confusion.

I don't want to say much and I sympathise with those that failed.

So N300,000 is a yardstick/guarantee to succeed at Bar Final?

Nigerian Law School is the only credible educational institution in Nigeria. There's no room for victimisation cos, your lecturers never mark your scripts-no sorting, et al. That's how education shld be.

I tell pple who have time to hear my rants, that Nigerian Law School is the only school I've ever been to.

I was one of the fortunate few who passed with second class honours..What I understood from d exams was that ur passing it depends on God and ur level of intelligence.Your problem solving skills comes to play..also ur ability to think fast to arrive at a legal solution in record time counts..I believe d failure was caused by a lot of factors on the part of the student and the law sch.On the part of the students..many persons depended a lot on past questions,forgetting that its a professional exams of which no one owes it to the students to keep to the previous marking scheme or line of questions.Also..it is said that people read, some ran mad,sleepless nights and long hours of reading were put in..I dare to say its not how long u study,but how well.I previously made mention in another thread of how I was one of d unserious persons in my room because I was not reading for insane hours.Its sad because many didn't understand that u assimilate more when u read and take short breaks.Further,cramming culture of students and irrelevant reading also led to the mass failure.you find someone trying to cram all d orders and rules in civil litigation,when the most important thing is the legal principles,because they carry more marks.most persons prided themselves in reading 3 different texts on a course..why not pick one?they would tell u u are mediocre...A lot of factors are to be considered...
I feel bad because I have friends who failed,but again the law school is a professional institution and as such will not pity students and let them all pass.ICAN exams and even consultancy exams for doctors are so tough that about 95% of candidates can fail it.my only grouse with the DG was the fact that we were not informed of the change in time duration of the MCQ exams..that was where some persons failure started from.In all,the move is drastic,but if we remove sentiments,in future we would thank d DG for his efforts to see that the crop of lawyers who pass the bar finals are indeed intelligent and also hardworking for them to have scaled through.Many persons crying failure up and and down carried expo into the the hall.I saw countless persons using little pieces of paper during d exams so not all are really innocent.For those who really did their best I encourage them to do things differently and they would pass.

Blackbeauty:
I was one of the fortunate few who passed with second class honours..What I understood from d exams was that ur passing it depends on God and ur level of intelligence.Your problem solving skills comes to play..also ur ability to think fast to arrive at a legal solution in record time counts..I believe d failure was caused by a lot of factors on the part of the student and the law sch.On the part of the students..many persons depended a lot on past questions,forgetting that its a professional exams of which no one owes it to the students to keep to the previous marking scheme or line of questions.Also..it is said that people read, some ran mad,sleepless nights and long hours of reading were put in..I dare to say its not how long u study,but how well.I previously made mention in another thread of how I was one of d unserious persons in my room because I was not reading for insane hours.Its sad because many didn't understand that u assimilate more when u read and take short breaks.Further,cramming culture of students and irrelevant reading also led to the mass failure.you find someone trying to cram all d orders and rules in civil litigation,when the most important thing is the legal principles,because they carry more marks.most persons prided themselves in reading 3 different texts on a course..why not pick one?they would tell u u are mediocre...A lot of factors are to be considered...
I feel bad because I have friends who failed,but again the law school is a professional institution and as such will not pity students and let them all pass.ICAN exams and even consultancy exams for doctors are so tough that about 95% of candidates can fail it.my only grouse with the DG was the fact that we were not informed of the change in time duration of the MCQ exams..that was where some persons failure started from.In all,the move is drastic,but if we remove sentiments,in future we would thank d DG for his efforts to see that the crop of lawyers who pass the bar finals are indeed intelligent and also hardworking for them to have scaled through.Many persons crying failure up and and down carried expo into the the hall.I saw countless persons using little pieces of paper during d exams so not all are really innocent.For those who really did their best I encourage them to do things differently and they would pass.

tnx ma fellow learned colleague..


I grab alot ma.

am a law student..

I just pray our own no go be like dis.
congrats ma!!!

Hmmm. While I perfectly understand d angle u guys are coming from, I must point out that there was something definitely wrong with the system this year. The blame can't go to the students alone.

The law school programme is designed to accomodate little or no social activity. I was in the Lagos campus and it was very, very stressful. From the long hours of lectures to the compulsory group meetings, one has little or no time to engage in frivolities. I'm also sure it was d same in other campuses.

Hence, most students didn't come there to have fun. They had already heard about how difficult the Bar finals was and most of them were willing to put in all efforts to make it.

It is therefore surprising that out of about 6000 students, over 4000 students failed. This mass failure is the first of its kind in the history of the NLS.

The DG assured us that gone are the days anybody could be a lawyer. Imagine such words! It is clear he wasn't bluffing, he made every effort to frustrate the hardwork of students. He reduced the MCQ time from 60 mins to 50 mins without informing us earlier. I only got to find out in the hall!

I also want to point out that majority of those who passed made a 'Pass'. I heard there were only about 300 second class lowers and only 50 second class uppers. The exams weren't that difficult to warrant such gross failure.

Nobody is saying that once u pay the N300,000 fees, u must pass the law skul. Definitely, there must be people who will fail. We are only asking for a review of the results by an impartial body. We need an explanation on how the exams were actually graded.

I made a 2nd class honours, but I still won't say the results were a reflection of people's efforts, because I know they weren't. Thousands of people deserved better than what they actually got.
We are only asking for a review. That's all.

I was opportuned to talk to a lecturer and ask what really happened. He told me if I see some scripts..I will weep!That the so called ",hardworking" students don't know how to answer questions./that most persons were writing op..some focused on giving them irrelevant authorities rather than aligning the legal principles to the hypothetical case in the question..so my dear @Anaskie,it is not enough to see people reading for 24 hours without rest.In law sch the basic tips I used was my reliance on God,reading smartly and not making it a do or die affair!You might feel u have put in a lot of efforts./but I don't feel the examiners would fail people deliberately esp in a professional institution like the law sch.people made first class..would they also say their efforts were not reflected in their results?it just behooves on those that failed to analyze themselves and prepare well for next time.besides,if d results are reviewed,it would not yield much fruit because a senior lecturer said the examiners went thru the scripts twice after marking to see how the failure rate can be reduced!

Nickydrake:
Enough of the wailing already! People failed the bar exam, so what? Surely you're not suggesting that, upon the payment of N300,000 as school fees at the Nigerian Law School, a student, by that fact alone, ought to be entitled to enrollment at the Supreme Court! Failure at the bar exam is hardly uncommon, but never has it engendered such a sustained note of petty whining.

Of course everyone is likely to point at the Law School and allege some fantastic plot to which the mass failure must be due. That is because it is far easier to cast oneself as victim than to face the hard, humiliating truth; a significant portion of purported graduates of law are simply not ready for law school. Why, they're barely ready for anything at all! Ours is an age in which university degrees can be bought, and any girl who is so inclined may well have her grades determined by her performance in the sack. If its reputation is anything to go by, the NLS accommodates none of that nonsense.When students who are long unaccustomed to intellectual labour suddenly find themselves in the middle of so rigourous a regime as that of the Nigerian Law School, failure is merely a natural consequence.

Perhaps, as some have alleged, the environment in some campuses may have been a tad inconvenient on account of overcrowding, but about 2000 students did not let themselves be hampered by that. Four of them in fact graduated with the highest honours. If blame is to be apportioned for the mass failure, the students themselves must enjoy a sizeable portion of it.

I'm sorry o. I don't want you to be offended but what you said didn't make any sense to me; not even a letter not to talk of a sentence. Without prejudice to the fact that laziness has eaten deep into our generation, are students who wrote the exam one, two, three...years ago not part of this generation? In fact, I stand to be corrected, this set of student might be better than a particular year. Is it not the same set of universities producing law students that produced them? Why is it that this occurred immediately the new DG took over? Evidence even showed that the man had threatened them earlier. Have you read other posts about the incidents in which some people lamented that some of their roommates and friends who read for about 12hours everyday also failed? We are not saying students should not take responsibility for their failure but the point is that this particular result is questionable. Also, your sentences are too fallacious to be considered as a comment on a post like this and I strongly believe you must have spoken from an utmost level of ignorance. And I have every reason to believe, if you had been part of the candidates, you would not have been better. Once again[b], YOUR COMMENT MAKES NO SENSE TO ME.[/b] NB: read Blackbeauty's comment. That's a good example of comment by an intellectual. Not that you just come here and pour down rubbish #Gbam!, like tipper.

Hmmm all these comments, just hope the next set won't be like this.
In my view, I know so many students from my faculty who were extraordinarily brilliant, who I so much believe in, but still dey made just PASS unbelievable. It got me thinking, that smth must be definitely wrong somewhere, except of course the questions itself was misleading and as such had a different interpretation in the marking scheme other than what it should've been. It will be very nice if they made the marking scheme available for general assessment, (that's if possible ooo) at least all these shouts, ranting, confusion, and panic this result is causing will be highly reduced.
Abi wetin in una think?

I would say; the judicial system is really worth sanitizing. This should be one of the ways...

Some comments here are just ridiculous. Well I have nothing to say. Blackbeauty it seems u r awestruck abt ur result. You never expected to get such good result after you unserious demeanour but there are others who are way better than you n me and also labored onerously all thru law schl yet they dint get what they deservd. so don't feel you ve got the special recipe to breakthrough bar finals.. wat workd for u myt not work for others. many of us were disappointed with the results even if we passed. besides the so called rot in the system didn't start this year and it will not end this year. so pls spare us the rot in the profession trash.

Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja

Authorities of Nigeria Law School have described the claims that about 4,000 students of the institution failed its August 2014 Bar Final Examinations as untrue.

Some students of the school have in the past few days embarked on protests over what they described as mass failure in the final examination at the Nigerian Law School which is the main prerequisite for young lawyer graduates to be called to the Bar.


Nigerian Law School headquarters in Abuja
The Students had alleged that over 70 per cent of students who wrote exams in August failed the exams when the results were recently released by the School.

The Students blamed the situation of the Professor Olanrewaju Onadeko, the Director General of the School who they claimed gave instructions that a lot of scripts should be marked down for reasons they however failed to explain.

The students had consequently taken to the social media to protest what they described as the poor handling and marking of the Bar 2 final exam while calling for a review of the exercise.

But while speaking on Monday, Mrs. E.O Max-Uba, Secretary to the Council of Legal Education and Director of Administration of Nigeria Law School said contrary to the claims of the students, 57.01 per cent of those who took the exam out rightly passed.

She added that the Bar Examination is just like any other professional examination which the failure or pass rate varies from year to year.

A document made available to PM NEWS indicated that a total of 5841 regular candidates registered for the examination in the 2013/2014 academic year across the six campuses of the Law School. A further breakdown of the performance revealed that four students made 1st Class Honours while 96 students passed in the Second Class (Upper Division).

On the other hand, 620 students passed in the Second Class (Lower Division) while 2610 or 44.68 per cent of the students recorded ordinary pass. Also, 501 students recorded conditional pass because they have reference in one subject while 1932 students failed the examination. However, the failure rate was high among the Re-Sit candidates with about 1168 out of 1335 students who registered failing the examinations while 88 students recorded ordinary pass. Also, 26 of the re-sit students recorded conditional pass.

Mrs. Max Uba said that the failure rate is high among the re-sit students because some of them are either working or based outside the country.

The Secretary to the Council of Legal Education who said the ongoing protest is being led by some of the re-sit students noted that some of them have sat for the examinations four times without success because they refused to participate in revision classes always organized for them prior to the examinations.

She dismissed claims of victimization by the DG of Law School who she said does not even participate in marking of examination papers. In the same vein, Mrs Max-Uba dismissed the claims of victimization of the students by lecturers as she argued that the examination papers are not usually marked by those who set the examinations.

On whether the results will be reviewed, she said any candidate may apply for review in accordance with extant rules of the Council for Legal Education.

She however said candidates who failed the examination will only have the opportunity of a re-sit next year.

Mrs. Max-Uba also informed PM NEWS that in view of poor performance of the re-sit candidates at the August 2014 examinations, the Board of Studies of the Council of Legal Education has directed that henceforth, re-sit candidates are to attend at least, eight weeks compulsory revision classes at the Law School to the be allowed to sit for the examinations.

According to her, details of the re-sit will be announced soon.


http://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2014/10/20/official-only-1932-students-failed-nigeria-law-school-bar-exam/