Measures to improve legal education in India
The history of the evolution of legal education:
- The national law universities (NLUs) of India were established in the 1990s.
- Globalisation and liberalisation have given lawyers more opportunities.
- As a result, many intelligent young people decided to pursue law studies after school.
Problems with legal education:
- Despite being able to draw in top-notch students, the majority of NLUs have not been able to establish themselves as premier locations for legal research.
- In the QS rankings of the top 250 law schools worldwide, just two Indian law schools—Jindal Global Law School and National Law School of India University—are listed.
- The majority of India’s 1,700 or so law schools pay little attention to research and instead concentrate mostly on teaching.
- India is not the primary provider of legal information, but rather a major consumer of it from the West.
- Only a small number of the more than 800 law journals that are listed in Scopus, an internationally renowned database that includes top journals across all disciplines, are published in India.
- This demonstrates the pitifully low calibre of research conducted in Indian law colleges.
The committee’s recommendation:
- Its purpose is to restrict the Bar Council of India’s (BCI) authority over legal education.
- The National Council for Legal Education and Research (NCLER), an independent organisation, should be tasked with overseeing these aspects of legal education, according to the committee’s recommendation.
- This proposed organisation will create standards of quality to govern legal education.
- The NCLER should include distinguished law professors with an impeccable record of research and service to legal education, in addition to judges and practicing attorneys.
- The committee stresses how important it is to support and prioritise legal education research.
- Better teaching results and the growth of students’ critical perspectives will result from it.
- State funding: There is a higher need for state support in order to enhance the research ecosystem in our law schools.
- Encouraging research would also prepare India’s law schools for success in an increasingly globalised environment.
- The committee is aware of how globalisation has affected legal education.
- It suggests creating and implementing an international curriculum.
- encouraging international exchange activities for academics and students
- expanding the curriculum to include more courses on international law
- extending the exposure of students to various legal systems.
The function of BCI:
- It is a statutory organisation created to oversee and represent the Indian bar under the Advocates Act of 1961.
Uses:
- It carries out the regulatory role by enforcing rules about professional behaviour and manners and by having the authority to discipline members of the bar.
- Additionally, it establishes requirements for legal education and recognises universities whose legal degrees would be accepted as prerequisites for advocacy enrollment.
- In order to award advocates practicing law in India with a “Certificate of Practice,” it administers the All India Bar Examination (AIBE).
- BCI also provides funding for welfare programmes for advocates who are physically or economically disadvantaged.
- It controls legal education related to obtaining the minimum qualifications needed to practise law in courts.
- Litigation is unrelated to other aspects of legal education, particularly post-graduation legal education.
Way Ahead:
- “The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think,” as Albert Einstein once stated.
- The recruitment of “world class global faculty who are top researchers” is necessary to improve research.
- The recommendations made by the parliamentary committee are a breath of fresh air and might keep many law professors smiling.
- The legal faculties and law schools of our university should be led by enthusiastic, gregarious, and forward-thinking academics.
- who motivate and foster an environment that is encouraging and supportive
- enables more youthful academics to reach their full potential as exceptional instructors and talented researchers.
- There should be total academic freedom and autonomy in order to foster a culture of legal study in our law schools.
- A university stands for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for the adventure of ideas and for the search of truth,” as Jawaharlal Nehru once stated.
- Academic institutions, including law schools, can only achieve this objective if scholars are free to express their thoroughly studied opinions without fear.
- even when these opinions contradict the prevailing notions of the day or go counter to widely held assumptions in society.
- The engagement of the parliamentary committee is a positive step, and it is anticipated that all parties involved would collaborate to raise the standard of legal education in India.
