Vincent Ekow Assafuah, the Member of Parliament for Old Tafo, called for the government to urgently clarify if prospective students, among them backlog applicants, would continue to be required to sit for entrance examinations into the Ghana School of Law. It comes following President John Dramani Mahama’s presidential assent to the Legal Education Reforms Bill, 2026. Following reports of the President’s assent, Mr Assafuah said in a statement that the outcome was welcome but some significant issues that law students are dealing with are still unresolved, that a meeting and dialogue had to take place with the Government.
The Old Tafo MP was investigating the comments purportedly made by the Majority Chief Whip Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor in a Facebook post Monday, May 11, in which the Majority Chief Whip claimed there had been no official public advertisement for the entrance examinations planned for July 31, 2026. Those were words Mr Assafuah said were deceptive and raised false expectations in students as the Independent Examination Council (IEC) had actually fixed a date for the examinations. “So it is reckless for him to toy with the future of law students by creating the impression that there would be no examinations,” he said.
The Minority in Parliament welcomes the presidential assent as “a step in the right direction” and a sign that the government is showing a clear commitment to reforming legal education. But he said that the government needs to urgently clarify how the new law will be implemented and unambiguously state whether the Independent Examination Council will follow through with this year’s entrance examinations.
Mr Assafuah also called on the government to direct the IEC to postpone the examination date if it is to be held, because students might lack adequate time to prepare their exams. The candidates who appeared for the Ghana School of Law entrance examination in 2025 wrote the papers on September 12, and he suggested that a similar timetable should be adopted this year instead of the current “hurried” one, which takes place on July 31. The Old Tafo MP also called on the government to issue an “unqualified public apology” for what he described as the unnecessary anxiety and confusion experienced by prospective law students.
Editor:
Obiri-Yeboah
