Latest update March 28th, 2025 1:00 AM

Guyana's largest selling daily and New York's most popular weekly

Latest News

THE LAW SCHOOL CONUNDRUM

Mar 13, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The top twenty-five graduates of Guyana’s law programme at the University of Guyana are no longer guaranteed a place at the Hugh Wooding Law School. Those twenty-five students along with the other Guyanese law graduates who wish to obtain their Legal Education Certificate (LEC) will now have to compete with other students from the Region for places at the Hugh Wooding Law School.
And rightly so! It is patently unjust for Guyanese who have graduated with their LLBs from the University of Guyana – which is not a member or contributor to the University of the West Indies – to be granted automatic places to Hugh Wooding. It is unfair because students from outside of the three regional law schools in Trinidad, Jamaica and Bahamas have to write a written examination in order to gain places at these law schools.
The students from the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica, Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and the Eugene Dupuch Law School in Bahamas are given automatic placements to undertake their LECs. All others, except Guyanese, have to do the written examinations to secure a place.
If this process is to be fair then students from Guyana ought not to be given an unfair advantage over their other regional counterparts who are required to write an entrance examination to gain entry to Hugh Wooding.  Guyana should not be seeking special treatment. We are not part of the UWI family and we are not entitled to the privileges afforded to UWI graduates.
We should not be seeking guaranteed places. We should be seeking for everyone, including UWI LLB graduates, to have to write the entrance examination.
The entrance examination should not be intimidating. There have been Guyanese who did not make the shortlist of the top twenty-five law graduates from UG but who successfully passed the entrance examinations at Hugh Wooding and who gained acceptance to the LEC programme.
If the top twenty-five, indeed if all the students who passed the LLB at the University of Guyana are good enough, they should be easily able to pass the entrance examinations for Hugh Wooding and therefore be eligible for acceptance.
Problems will only arise in two situations. The first is if the top twenty-five graduates from the law programme at the University of the Guyana are not good enough to pass the entrance examinations. To grant automatic placements to students who are not good enough would be patently unfair to students who do not have automatic placements.
It is hard to contemplate a top twenty-five student from the UG law programme failing the entrance examination. So there should be no trepidation about the UG graduates failing the entrance examinations at Hugh Wooding, more so since Guyanese law students have always excelled at Hugh Wooding. Why therefore the objection to writing the entrance examinations. Guyanese will pass in any event?
The real issue I believe is in relation to the second situation: the limited number of places at Hugh Wooding. When you have twenty-five automatic places, the top quartile graduates from UG do not have to worry about placements at Hugh Wooding. Those who have to worry are those who have to compete through an entrance examination for the limited places remaining.
This is where the problem lies. If there are limited places available at Hugh Wooding, then it is quite possible for some of the twenty-five top law graduates in Guyana to be refused admission on the grounds that there are no more places available. You cannot ask the Trinidadians to deny their own students simply to guarantee places to Guyana which is not part of the UWI family.
The twenty-five automatic places granted to Guyanese students could never have been intended as a permanent arrangement. While it has allowed our graduates to gain automatic placements at Hugh Wooding over the years, not many persons have considered the fate of those who were not in the top twenty-five. Some of those students are still waiting to complete their LECs because they have not yet gained admission to any of the law schools associated with UWI.
The solution to the problem is for Guyana to move towards its own law school and concurrently to take steps to have any LEC granted by this law school to be recognized in the Region.
Guyana can no longer afford to gamble the future of students on the generosity of Hugh Wooding. That generosity is about to end. It is time to build our own Law School that offers LECs.
The Marriot tHotel being constructed in Georgetown would be the perfect building to house such a law school.

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| March, 17th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

The ethnic diversity debate

The ethnic diversity debate

Mar 28, 2025

Dear Editor, As we continue the debate about Guyana`s ethnic diversity and the ethnic conflict which has afflicted our society, there are those who attribute our problem solely to the politicians and...
Read More
𝐓𝐒𝐔, Region 2 book semi-final spots as teams look towards the finale

𝐓𝐒𝐔, Region 2 book semi-final spots as...

Mar 27, 2025

World Athletics recognize AAG Elections

World Athletics recognize AAG Elections

Mar 27, 2025

Ramdehol named Berbice skipper ahead of GCB U17 Inter- County tournament 

Ramdehol named Berbice skipper ahead of GCB U17...

Mar 27, 2025

National player Nigel Bryan represents Guyana at World Table Tennis Chennai Contender event

National player Nigel Bryan represents Guyana at...

Mar 27, 2025

Newton embarks on two-week training in Paraguay

Newton embarks on two-week training in Paraguay

Mar 27, 2025

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Freedom of speech is our core value at Kaieteur News. If the letter/e-mail you sent was not published, and you believe that its contents were not libellous, let us know, please contact us by phone or email.

Feel free to send us your comments and/or criticisms.
Contact: 624-6456; 225-8452; 225-8458; 225-8463; 225-8465; 225-8473 or 225-8491.
Or by Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]