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Law students have their goose cooked. We feel cheated. After going through a rigorous four-year undergraduate course, we are still expected to go to the Kenya School of Law (KSL) for another two years before we get our diplomas to practice Law.
There, we are reminded of the stuff we learned in college and expected to part with a cool Sh196,000. That, added to the day-to-day expenses such as food, accommodation and transport comes to quarter a million. All in the span of one year. There is no student loan, regardless of whether or not you are from a poor family.
FAILED UNITS
But that is not the problem. We know what we sign up for. But consider this: This past academic year, students sat for exams that were released on June 16. Out of 1,400 students, only 125 passed all the papers. So more than 90 per cent of those students either failed some units or had missing marks or both.
Now, a remark costs Sh10,000 whereas a resit costs Sh15,000. And anyone who has missing marks pays a standard fee of Sh2,000 to enable the lecturer ‘check the marks’.
Nobody is guaranteed of passing in case one chooses to go down that route. When you think of it carefully, anyone who took the test and still wants to ever practice Law has to do the papers again.
No doubt Kenya School of Law is doing well. Do the math. The institution is going to make a killing from the students who failed last year’s exam and all because students who enroll have nothing between their ears, their power to read is pathetic.
Oddly, the same lecturers who teach at UoN, Moi and Strathmore Law School are also the same ones who teach at KSL. So it is quite curious why students pass with flying colors at university, only to turn into dunderheads at the Kenya School of Law.
BROKE LAWYER
I know there are lots of young boys and girls who look at Prof PLO Lumumba’s crisp Mao suits, listen to his grasp of the queen’s language and wondrously say, “When I grow up, I want to be like PLO.”
But the reality is if you thought being a young broke jobless lawyer in this town is hell, then you have no idea how difficult and expensive it is to become one. It is a dog’s life.
Anyway, to those who long to be called ‘learned friends’, stand informed. Be inspired. As for me, consider this my towel. I’m done.
