LDC grapples with big numbers amid low funding 

The Law Development Centre (LDC) is grappling with a growing increase of applicants and managing a big number amid less funding, the institution’s director, Mr Frank Nigel Othembi, has said.
Speaking at the 51st graduation ceremony on Friday, Mr Othembi expressed worry that if there is no increase in funding, they will have no option but to drastically reduce their admissions for the Bar Course students.

“As a profession, we need a serious discussion about managing these numbers as everyone wants to study law,” he said.
He expressed the challenges posed by the increasing numbers enrolling for the postgraduate Bar course, especially in ensuring that quantity does not compromise quality.

Mr Othembi further said with the liberalisation of legal education and the suspension of the pre-entry exam coupled with the popularity of law, the challenge of high numbers will get worse before it gets better.
“We have a student population of about 2,000 Bar course students and 1,000 undertaking various other courses across the three campuses,” he said.
He noted that their human and material resources are stretched and also the universities keep graduating so many law students, noting that last year alone, they got 3,000 applicants for the Bar Course and only admitted 1,600.

Speaking at the same graduation, Solicitor General Francis Atoke emphasised the imperative for LDC to effectively manage the surge in applicant numbers and prioritise only those who can receive the highest quality of education.
Justice Irene Mulyagonja, the Court of Appeal Judge who is also the chairperson of Uganda Law Council, urged the graduands to have legal principles and asked them to always tell their clients the truth if they have no case.

“Stop taking fees from your clients if there is no case, just advise them to have a good reputation and also to save court’s time,” she advised.
Among the graduands were Mr Joel Ssenyonyi, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament; Ms Rose Namayanja, the NRM deputy Secretary General,  and Mr Hudu Hussein, the Masaka Resident City Commissioner. A total of 868 lawyers graduated at the event.

Ms Namayanja was of the view that the government considers a bar course in all disciplines for competence.

"Every discipline should have the bar course or anything as an equivalent to what learners at LDC go through. The ethics and stricter policies at LDC are constructive and improve ethics competence in the employment environment," Namayanja opined

She said also said if all public servants could studied the bar course, there would be a great improvement in mode of work.
"The strictness at LDC would instil discipline among civil servants. Also, the consistency in weekly exams would enable leaders to always carry out research.Leaders are r eaders and readers are leaders. That is the lesson you learn when you go for the bar course," she said.

Statistics obtained from LDC shows that prior to the scrapping of the pre-entry exams for the Bar Course, they were admitting about 500 students but after the requirement was scrapped, they are now enrolling more than 2,000 students in each of the three locations.