Say lack of inter-disciplinary modules affecting lawyers
The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN); founder of Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), Ado-Ekiti, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) and President of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Olumide Akpata, have identified obsolete curriculum as one of the biggest challenges confronting the country’s legal education.
They stressed the need for holistic overhaul of the curriculum to reflect the contemporary realities, saying the existing one had not kept pace with global development and societal needs.
They said that knowledge of legal principles and theory alone does not make good lawyers. They made the call in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital yesterday, at the 2022 Legal Education Summit organised by the NBA in collaboration with Afe Babalola University.
Osinbajo lamented that the Nigerian Law Schools were still producing lawyers that could not measure up to contemporary benchmark and global best practices in the legal profession, adding that a well-articulated review of the obsolete curriculum would ensure a critical role in ensuring that law graduates acquire qualitative legal education and compete favourably with their contemporaries.
The Vice President, who spoke through virtual broadcast, emphasised the need for law graduates to be subjected to intense practical training and also be exposed to the mastery of intricacies of the legal profession.
Babalola, who advocated a Central Law School, faulted the recent creation of six new schools, saying that the proliferation of the training grounds would not solve the problem of access to legal education.
He noted that the best way to address the problem of access to quality legal education was to establish centralised law school with modern facilities and seasoned faculty members of international repute.
In his submission, Akpata urged need for review of the curriculum, saying experience with fresh law graduates had shown that they lack the requisite knowledge to fit into today’s law practice.
He lamented that the curriculum being used in the universities and the Nigerian Law School had hardly changed over the years, saying that there is urgent need to review the present curriculum to meet the global developmental challenge.
