Man Jose Kayima
The head Bar Course at Law Development Centre (LDC), Annet Karungi has asked the Law Council to investigate first class degrees being issued by some universities in Uganda.
She wondered why there are currently “abnormal” high numbers of students with high grades, but during training, many clog LDC’s system due to the failure to pass numerous subjects.
I think we have observed that the pattern in the last academic years they are really not necessarily the best, and many of them (students) actually end up clogging the system, repeating various subjects. So it is something we have shared with Law Council and we are hopeful as a regulator, they will take it up and address it at the time of regulation and accreditation of the law Schools,” Karungi said.
Karungi made the revelation on Monday while appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, where the officials had appeared to defend the 2024/25 national budget framework paper.
The MPs had asked the LDC to explain why some students were not admitted to the Centre, despite paying for the course.
However, Karungi denied allegations that LDC declined to admit some students, saying there is no student who paid for the current academic year for the current intake of 2023/24 and was not admitted.
She explained that rather, during the current intake, LDC received more than 3000 applicants and because of the limited facilities, all these students could not be taken on.
“In the process of admission, we realized that something is coming up, but I believe Law Council will handle it. You find that applicants from certain Universities, almost the entire class have first class or upper second class, so we have to devise a fair method of admission and we decided to take on 60% from each University.”
She added, “So what we did, ranking from the first to 60% , we took on the top most from each University, the rest were admitted and given offer letters for next academic year, which is really guaranteed.”
