By Florence Afriyie Mensah
Kumasi, March 31, GNA – Dr. Chris Adomako-Kwakye, acting Dean of the Faculty of Law, at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), says legal education has no room for laziness and lukewarm attitude to academic work.
He has, therefore, urged the students to eschew indiscipline in all its forms, and to demonstrate seriousness in their academic work and career development.
They must also uphold the ethics of law studies, learn hard to achieve academic goals and work their ways to the top for their success in the future.
Dr. Adomako-Kwakye was speaking at the induction ceremony for 260 newly admitted Bachelor of Law (LLB) students for the 2022/2023 academic year.
The ceremony signified the official acceptance of the students into the University community, to enable them to begin academic studies towards achieving a Bachelor’s Degree in Law.
This is the 21st year after the first batch of students were accepted to the Faculty of Law at the KNUST.
Dr. Adomako-Kwakye said the KNUST Faculty of Law was a thriving organisation, stressing that, by dint of hard work and good structures, it had metamorphosed into one of the best institutions providing legal education in the West African sub-Region.
Therefore, the authorities would not lose focus, but keep to the faculty’s mandate and mission statement, especially at a time when the legal profession was undergoing a significant change.
According to the acting Dean, there was genuine uncertainty about what lawyers’ careers would look like in the next 10 or 20 years, particularly, in the light of how to reform professional legal education and certain aspects of the regulations of the legal profession.
In view of this, the faculty would not renege on its commitment to being a dynamic institution that responded to the changing times.
The agenda, according to him, was to ensure that law students enrolled in the faculty’s programmes and courses thrived, adapted and “have the ideal combination of abilities, the best foundational education and practical training.”
Dr Adomako-Kwakye said the institution maintained a robust moot court and law clinic programmes to help build the advocacy abilities of the students.
It had participated in several regional, national and international moot court contests and had been successful in all such appearances, the acting Dean cited with satisfaction.
Nana Akwasi Awuah, an alumnus, and Managing Director of the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), in an address, noted that the study of law would open students up for exciting, prestigious and rewarding career opportunities to change the world.
He urged the inductees to strive for academic excellence, adding that the study of law was tough, and students needed to go the extra mile.
He said the daunting nature of legal education might compel students to question beliefs and other principles as well as reconsidering the study of law, saying these were incredible stages students had to work hard to overcome in order to achieve successes.
The Ashanti Regional Supervising High Court Judge, His Lordship Justice Kofi Akrowiah, administered the Induction Oath.
GNA