Within the eight years of his assumption of office, Prof Alabi has transformed the former Institute of Professional Studies into a fully fledged world class University.
The University under him, also seen a significant expansion in infrastructure, a very large increase in student enrolment and the introduction of various professional programmes at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Faculty of Law, Prof Alabi tasked the Faculty to work towards becoming independent of the Ghana School of Law to certify its own students.
He said the UPSA had over the years proved its worth by performing exceptionally in administering professional courses that produced quality human resources.
Prof Alabi, whose tenure comes to an end on December 31, 2016, stated that the UPSA had chalked a lot of successes, including becoming the only university in Africa, which offered a Master’s Programme in Audit and Quality Control Management.
Prof Kwame Frimpong, the Founding Dean of the Law Faculty of the UPSA, urged the General Legal Council (GLC) and National Accreditation Board to initiate reforms in the country’s legal education to ensure that the entire professional programme was run by the individual institutions instead of completing at the Ghana School of Law (GSL).
He explained that the reform had become necessary because the current educational system under the GLC was unsustainable.
He said the system in which Literally Legum Baccalaureus (LLB) holders from tertiary institutions, such as the University of Ghana and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology would have to complete an additional programme at the GSL before they could be certified as lawyers was untenable.
Prof Frimpong said Law Faculties should be restructured to run the whole legal programme while a Bar Examination should be established and supervised by the GLC to certify those who would pass legal qualification examination.
He noted that the existing structure of the Law School was restrictive and was not able to admit more LLB holders to study for the additional programme.
He refuted the notion that the Law profession would be bereft of quality, but be full of half-baked practitioners, if such powers were given to law faculties to offer the entire programme.
“The country does not have many lawyers as proclaimed by some people, always, rather there are few lawyers,” Prof Frimpong said.
“This is because the number of lawyers does not march up with the population of the country and the real practising lawyers are few,” he added.
He noted that the Bar Examination to be established would ensure that quality lawyers were certified after they had passed, while the GLC would monitor their activities.
Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, the Consulting Director of UPSA Centre for Public Accountability, who chaired the function hailed the University for establishing the Faculty of Law.
He appealed to UPSA Management to strengthen the Faculty to make it more competitive.
Mr Kan-Dapaah also urged the nation’s universities to strengthen their accountability mechanism to curb corruption.
Source: GNA/News Ghana
