Nigerian Law School's unfair treatment

SIR: The institution conferred with the authority to decide the fate of law graduates in Nigeria is the Nigerian Law School. Every year universities are requested to send the data of graduates or graduating students to the Nigerian Law School. These eligible candidates then apply.

Unfortunately some universities admit more than the number allotted to them by the supervisory authority. Or sometimes universities which comply with the decision policy have their academic session disrupted as a result of either a strike action or internal crisis which usually affects academic calendar. The result is the backlog of students waiting to be admitted into the Law School.

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Since the Law School does not admit more than the quota allotted to the universities, what it does is taking the number allotted and dropping the rest. What this means is that not all eligible candidates who apply gain admission. Be that as it may, it is expected that those who were not admitted the previous year should be given preference the following year. This however is not the case with the Nigerian Law School. Once admission is not given, the case of the affected applicants is treated as if they did not apply at all. This means the universities are expected to re-forward their names the following year.

But the Nigerian factor comes to play as many universities send new names without including the affected students whose data were sent the previous year, but were not admitted. The Nigerian Law School uses minor queries such as "LLB result not received from your university", "Employment Form not received" and so on to drop applicants. These excuses are used as an escape route to avoid admitting more than what the facilities in the four campuses can accommodate.

One expects that Application Forms of the eligible candidates who were not admitted should be kept and preserved by the Nigerian Law School, so that the following year, their names would be displayed on the Law School portal with the instruction that they should re-apply and submit their Application Forms through their respective schools.

Law graduates should be treated as degree holders like their counterparts from other disciplines. They do not deserve to be treated as candidates sitting for Universities Matriculation Examination. Having graduated, the society already accords some respect to them as lawyers; so to treat them otherwise make people look down on the legal profession.

The Nigerian Law School should reconsider its current method of application as it does not give good image to this noble profession.