In a bid to improve the quality of legal education in Uganda, Dr. Pamela Tibihikirra-Kalyegira, the Director of the Law Development Center (LDC), has called for the mandatory introduction of pre-entry exams for all candidates seeking admission to law schools across the country. Dr. Tibihikirra, a respected figure in Uganda’s legal fraternity, emphasized that the current system allows candidates with just two principal passes to enroll in law school, resulting in compromised standards among graduates who later seek to obtain a Diploma in Legal Practice at the LDC.
Dr. Tibihikirra, who has held various prominent positions, including Dean of the Faculty of Law at Uganda Christian University and Chairperson of the Uganda Law Reform Commission, expressed concern that the introduction of pre-entry exams at the LDC comes too late in the academic journey. By the time students reach LDC, they have already spent significant time and financial resources on their undergraduate law degrees, only to face another hurdle.
“My issue with pre-entry is part of what the Attorney General said; it’s coming late. Pre-entry at LDC, you have already spent your four years in law school; you have sold your cows; you have sold your land; you have invested time and effort in getting this law degree. So to meet yet another barrier is perhaps unfair,” Dr. Tibihikirra remarked. She stressed the need for a sieving process earlier in the education pipeline, particularly at the law school level, to ensure that only qualified candidates pursue a legal education.
Currently, some universities in Uganda, such as Makerere University, require candidates to pass a pre-entry exam before being admitted to the Bachelor of Laws program. However, many private institutions only require two principal passes at the A-level, leading to a disparity in the quality of law graduates. Dr. Tibihikirra pointed out that this lack of stringent entry requirements has resulted in an influx of unqualified students, ultimately affecting the legal profession’s standards.
“Right now, the law schools are taking in anyone, and perhaps as a profession, we need to go back and ask ourselves, how come medicine, engineering, and architecture are not taking anyone, but for us, we are happy to have any sort of person coming into law school,” Dr. Tibihikirra added. She argued that if Uganda values the training provided by the LDC and its role in producing competent lawyers, there needs to be better control over admissions at the law school level.
Dr. Tibihikirra also criticized certain universities for their lax grading standards, which result in an overabundance of first-class degrees. She highlighted the challenge this poses for the LDC when selecting candidates for the Diploma in Legal Practice, noting that without a uniform pre-entry exam, it becomes difficult to fairly assess applicants from different institutions.
“Just applying logic to 2300 applicants who had not sat the same exam, and therefore, if you used CGPA, you’d be leaving out the law schools that are more strict in their marking. And we know them. We know those law schools that are strict. We also know the ones that dish out first classes,” Dr. Tibihikirra explained. She emphasized that introducing pre-entry exams at the undergraduate level would help filter out less qualified candidates early on, leading to a more competent and well-prepared pool of law graduates.
Uganda’s system has two trainings for lawyers: one at the university level (law school), where students graduate with degrees in law, and the Law Development Center, where a graduate of law is admitted to study and acquire a diploma in legal practice, which is mandatory for any lawyer to represent a client in court.
What is taught at the law school (university), however, is basic ground-breaking and more theoretical, which is why for any lawyer to represent a client in court, they must have obtained a diploma in legal practice from LDC.
