Yet new islands of excellence.

Few days ago the Central Law minister announced the setting up of four ‘law schools of excellence’, it can be presumed he is speaking of setting up of four new ‘National Law Schools’. In one of my earlier posts I had tried to shed light on the rapid rate at which new law schools are being opened in this country without any care about the quality of students it is producing, recently a newspaper brought out a story that a 120 year old law college in a metro city having around 350 LLB students in its rolls had just 2 full time teachers (and BCI was thinking of revoking accreditation). Yet instead of addressing the problems plaguing legal education like paucity of faculty, inadequate libraries in 90% law colleges, improper curriculum etc. the minister goes on to decide to open new law schools. The apparent reason as given by the minister is that ‘Instead of the present islands of excellence in legal field, we require an ocean of excellence’, it is true that we need an ocean of excellence but why not invest the money in the present system instead of opening four new law schools. There are at least 3 law schools in India which are of international standards why not put whatever grand plans the minister may have ‘for legal education reforms’ in these law schools rather than just create more ‘islands of excellence’ in an ocean of ignorance. These 3 national law schools could be a template for revolutionizing legal education whereby the command and control of the legal education like syllabus, teaching pattern, examination of all the law colleges could be transferred over to the VC and a team of senior academicians of the national law school. This would ensure that the quality of legal education in these premiere law schools would also permeate to the lesser know cousins. Yet the minister takes the easy (populist) road out rather than take the hard (in long run beneficial) decision.