Can Assessment Be a Panacea for All Education’s Ills? The Case of an Entrance Examination to Ghana School of Law

doi:10.7176/jep/13-2-01

Abstract

The 2019 entrance examination of the Ghana School of Law (GSL) recorded an unusually high failure rate which sparked a vibrant national discourse. This study sought to throw light on the reasons for the mass failure and unsuccessful students’ understanding of this experience using documentary sources and interviews. The study found that there was concern about the rising cases of unprofessional practices among legal practitioners and the authorities decided to stop the decline with the entrance examination. The entrance examination was purposefully used to restrict the number of entrants to the professional legal training institution. Also, the students who did not pass the examination felt being treated unfairly but were cowed by the fact of their failure in the examination. The study concluded that the entrance examination was used in a unique way primarily because of the notion of merit inherent in assessment which is also seen as the embodiment of acceptable standard. Keywords: External uses of assessment; Assessment and merit; The appeal of assessment; Entrance examination; Assessment as policy tool. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/13-2-01 Publication date: January 31 st 2022

Highlights

Educational assessment in its various forms is used for a variety of purposes ranging from the provision of information for use in the course of instruction (Black & William, 1998) to providing a basis for decisions in the wider society outside the classroom (Porter, 1995)
What is not in doubt though is that attributes related to the affective domain such as values, morality and ethical conduct cannot be gleaned from examination results. It is in this light that the use of an entrance examination by Ghana School of Law (GSL) in a bid to promote value-laden conduct among lawyers in their postcall professional practice raises curiosity
The results generally show that school grades have higher predictive value than the admission tests (Lyrén, 2008; Wolming and Wikström, 2010)

Summary

Introduction

Educational assessment in its various forms is used for a variety of purposes ranging from the provision of information for use in the course of instruction (Black & William, 1998) to providing a basis for decisions in the wider society outside the classroom (Porter, 1995). What is not in doubt though is that attributes related to the affective domain such as values, morality and ethical conduct cannot be gleaned from examination results. It is in this light that the use of an entrance examination by Ghana School of Law (GSL) in a bid to promote value-laden conduct among lawyers in their postcall professional practice raises curiosity. The section focuses on the 2019 admission test of GSL and what it was intended to achieve. This is followed by the personal experiences of unsuccessful prospective students who took the test. Conclusions are drawn about possible reasons for the relatively unknown use of assessment in this instance

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion