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Feature

London College of Legal Studies

Nazia Ahmed

Legal education has its distinct niche in the entire education system. It is the force behind all sorts of administration of justice in a country. But it is true that the existing legal education system in Bangladesh is not adequate to produce quality students with profound knowledge in jurisprudence and thus become good lawyers in the long run. Some studies show that roughly about 1000 law students pass out from various law institutes every year who are eligible to do practice in any of the courts in Bangladesh.

London College Of Legal Studies has come into being with a vision of better legal system, which would contribute to shaping a better future of Bangladesh. Established in the year 2003, London College of Legal Studies is the first Institute of Bangladesh that will be offering government approved LLM degree. They have a strategic relationship with the London Trinity College with a clause that states that unless The Trinity College maintains the required standard of education the exchange program will be discontinued.

Principal Barrister Tofayel Rahman and Vice Principal Ziaul Hasan have been running this institution for the last three years and they have opened a new branch at Panthapath last year 2005. Under the same partnership the two wings have separate administrative bodies and their schedule and policies vary locally.

The institute offers two kind of curriculum, namely:
1. The New Castle based Education: University of North Umbria is based on open learning.
2. University of London - An extenal process.
The graduation process offers a 3-year and a 4-year course time. For students going for the 3-year process will do their last one year in North Umbria on a mandatory basis unlike the 4-year process. One of the unique techniques of this college is the recruitment process that is fairly informal and involves a course of action where they interview the entrants and analyze their feedbacks.

According to the students, the teachers have dedicated themselves exclusively to solving any problem regarding their students' academic and co curricular queries at any time of the day. This is a vital reason behind the students being able to survive tough challenges in their exams and practical fields as the course requires them to study on their own all throughout. Therefore, the college emphasizes on discipline and regulations and insists on regular studies to increase the success rate, which also according to the students comes in the way of their carefree University campus culture. But they are also ready to make the compromise. “The teachers are easy to communicate with and they don't encourage favoritism,” says Saqib Kabir, a student. After a week's class there is a mandatory seminar in which the lectures are briefly reviewed where a question-answer round takes place.

The College provides its students with a good range of extracurricular activities. Currently they are having 5 clubs namely:

1. Debating Club: They are fairly active. They participated in the Daily Star Debate competition and won against DU and lost in the final to NSU.

2. Sports and Cultural Clubs: they have fresher night every year, annual program etc. They arrange for cricket and football games and hold matches with other institutions.

3. Legal Aids Club: they arrange for mock trials, court visits and conduct pupilage.

4. Printing and Publication Club: it has a photography wing, and they are working to publish prospectus and other literatures. The Library of LCLS is a comfortable space with considerable amount of furniture and provides easy access to the books in separately sectioned shelves for A-level and Undergrads. There are about 300 books on legal studies. Students from the college handle its smooth functioning.

“ It is a privilege for us to have our own students in charge of the library for it's the best way we get to know what book to consult and why, and therefore we have our own study guide right in our library!” Says a student of LCLS.

“ The institution provides us with flexible financial benefits, like, either salary for my work or full tuition waiver.” Says Nausheen Kamal, Librarian.

The students are very excited about the recent opening of the new IT Club, which has fully equipped computers and has Internet access.

They also have a legal wing that deals with students and their visas who are applying for U.K law schools.
“ We have our own people working in U.K to deal with students who are refused visas and help them go through an appeal process from London.” Says student affairs officer Sadat Shahriar Rushdie. Till now the college has maintained a pass rate of 90%, and this year the first batch has graduated and among them, two went for bar vocation, two for Buckingham L.L.M, one went for L.L.M in London. From the A-levels, one went for Kent University for honors and one to UCL.

“ In terms of our quality and number of faculty and the overall result, LCLS is definitely making a unique progress,” says Sadat Rushdie.

On the occasion of Star Campus' visit to LCLS, Barrister Khaled Hamid Chowdhuri, the Head of Laws said the following, “Our ultimate aim is to train our students to qualify as a barrister, and we believe this UK based education prepares them better. We as lawyers deal with people's lives, so we obviously need to be good enough since we are actually assisting the judge. With all our hard work and efforts we hope to build a premier law institute in Bangladesh”