The quality of tuition for graduates studying towards a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree came under scrutiny at 17 South African universities, following concerns raised last year within the law fraternity.

In recommendations to the universities, the Council on Higher Education (CHE) has urged tertiary institutions to improve liaison with one another to establish a common basic curriculum for law education.

CHE director: advice and monitoring Dr Judy Backhouse says that the organisation was approached by the South African Law Deans Asso-ciation (Salda), which repre-sents the deans of the law faculties at South African universities, to look into the quality of training in all LLB courses.

“Salda wanted to establish the extent of the quality challenge and, owing to the CHE being a neutral statutory organisation, it was tasked with reviewing the LLB qualification,” Backhouse explains.

In reviewing the law curricula of the 17 universities, the CHE found a great deal of commonality, although there were significant variations in content focus. “Universities should look at finding a common curriculum, so that all South African law graduates share a common minimum knowledge, while the universities would still be able to add their own course specialisations and structure their programmes in different ways.

“There is also significant room for improved communication between universities and law associations to better coordinate what graduate students learn in theory and what they practise during their articles,” Backhouse says.

The CHE undertook two surveys among law practitioners and law academics to measure the perceived quality of LLB education in South Africa. Backhouse explains that part of the survey included a list of 20 competencies, compiled from previous research, and sent to more than 14 000 legal practitioners, who had to indicate which of those competencies they had found most important in their careers.

A similar survey was also sent to law academics, who were asked to indicate their perception of the importance of these competencies and how well the universities impart the said competencies to students.

“We obtained perspectives from 2 514 legal practitioners and 351 academic respondents, all agreeing on six competencies as being most critical. These are the ability to understand, analyse, investigate and solve problems, proficiency in reading, writing and speaking English, in particular, the ability to read and interpret statutes and legal documents, the ability to construct and communicate an argument, understanding the principles of South African law, and proficiency in research skills.”

Backhouse notes that only one of the six most commonly desired competencies refers to knowledge, while the others are skills based.

“This poses a challenge, owing to universities being mostly knowledge orientated. Universities are good at imparting knowledge, but less able to impart skills, such as numeracy and literacy. The survey showed a steady decline in basic skills competence among students in the past 20 years,” she adds.

The role of universities is changing in all aspects, owing to their having to do a lot more remedial work. There is a shift taking place to emphasise skills development and universities will have to get better at imparting skills, the CHE says.

“Universities will have to adapt to equip staff to teach basic skills in a remediatory role, while still providing the space for intellectuals to develop to their full potential. The responsibility for developing basic skills should fall on primary and secondary education institutions, which seem not to be doing this effectively,” Backhouse notes.

Meanwhile, the Law Society of South Africa’s Legal Education and Development (LEAD) division reports that it will again undertake a literacy and legal writing project for candidate and practising attorneys in 2011 to sharpen legal practitioners’ skills.

LEAD director Nic Swart says that the organisation has found that the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education have left a substantial number of graduates with inadequate basic skills, neces-sitating such interventions.

“For example, the proficiency to read, write and speak English, in particular, is a critical aspect of law practice. The LEAD division wants to be part of the solution,” he says.

The CHE also notes that universities often face severe resources constraints. “Mock court experiences take up a lot of resources, such as time, money, facilities and staff, but it is a necessary experience for students if they are to be thoroughly prepared for legal practice,” Backhouse concludes.