KUALA LUMPUR – Bar Council president Karen Cheah has attributed local law students’ inability to be critical when analysing Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) exam questions as a factor in the low passing rate for the programme last year.
She said that the general consensus gathered from examiners of the CLP papers, after speaking to them, is that the quality of the answers could be “quite bad”, to say the least.
“A lot of the answers (given) are really not reflecting or displaying that they (students) are critically analysing the questions.
“They are either regurgitating things, like a parrot, or we have candidates who submit empty papers,” she said in a podcast interview with The Vibes premiering 10am tomorrow.
For the record, the results of the 2021 CLP examination was a pass rate of approximately 16.9%, a decline of almost 9% compared to the previous year which saw 399 candidates out of 1,656 students obtaining a full pass.
The results for the 2020 exam saw 25% of law graduates passing the CLP, while only 20% of the candidates passed in 2019.
Cheah reassured CLP exam-takers and aspiring lawyers that it is not the end of the world, should they fail the examination.
“Not everyone who does law and graduates with a law degree is a natural practitioner.
“Some people do it and become something else because they don’t have the affinity or the aptitude for law, and that’s fine.
“If you feel that practising (law) is not your passion, then do something else. So not passing your CLP is not the end of the world.” – The Vibes, August 5, 2022
Tune into the full episode of the podcast titled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Ep 11 here.
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