LDC: term opening delays over absence of lecturers

LDC: term opening delays over absence of lecturers

AL-MAHDI SSENKABIRWA

assenkabirwa@gmail.com

KAMPALA .The Law Development Centre (LDC), the sole institution in the country training lawyers to become advocates has extended the reporting date for continuing post-graduate law students by two weeks amid reports of lack of academic staff to teach at the institution.

Students were supposed to report for their second term on Monday but they will now report on January 16.

The development follows the sacking of all lecturers last month by management which asked them to reapply for the jobs in the on-going restructuring aimed at improving academic standards at the 41 year-old institution.

LDC spokesperson , Mr Hamis Lukyamuzi confirmed the changes yesterday, saying they were prompted by the delay by the institution’s management committee to consider old and new staff who applied for the jobs.

“The academic staff were supposed to reapply by December 31, 2011 but management didn’t get time consider their applications due to the long holiday -something that has slightly interrupted our calendar,” he said yesterday

LDC employees 30 full time lecturers, 20 part-timers and host of over 50 support staff. It also emerged yesterday that 15 old lecturers had applied to serve on the renewable three –year fixed term contract, seven on part-time basis and four opted to retire.

“Yes, it is true that some staff re-applied for the jobs and others declined but details of those have been retained will be available after the management committee meeting. ”he added

The management committee meeting, chaired by Justice Christine Kitumba is expected to convene today .

The development comes hardly three months after the same committee declined to renew the contract of the director, Mr Elijah Wante, ending his nearly three -decade career at the helm of the centre's management. Mr Wante, whose job has already been advertised in the papers, is expected to handover office in March.

The centre is currently under spotlight over falling academic standards, partly blamed on absenteeism of lecturers, congestion and poor quality of students admitted for the Bar Course. Majority of the lawyers admitted at the Centre fail to complete the course in the record 11 months after failing exams which they re-sit, something graduating after four years.

The centre was designed to enroll 120 diploma and bar students, but currently has five-times the number.

Although the blame has been put on LDC lecturers for failing to bring the best out of the students, management instead accuses universities of sending them poor quality graduate lawyers.

Last year, the centre rolled out a programme to equip all its lecturers’ in general pedagogical skills which are highly needed in the teaching profession after discovering that majority were mere law professionals who were lacking in this area.

In 2010, LDC also introduced a new policy that requires all lawyers joining LDC to do pre- entry exams, a measure meant to weed out sub-standard students.

Over the years , there have been calls to break the monopoly of LDC to offer the bar course but this move has faced stiff resistance from the Law Council ,which regulates the law profession in country arguing that opening up the market will compromise the standards.