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In defence of the LLB

Entry requirements for courses are all about supply and demand, not about the difficutly of the course. A number of years, I taught a non-law subject at a Russell Group university. My department was making a decision to raise the entry requirement from AAB to AAA. I asked whether people thought the students we were seeting with AAB were not up to the course. The reply was that there was no problem with the students, but we had too many applicants, so it would be easier to just raise the entry requirements. There are far more applicants for the LLB than places, so it stands to reason that the entry requirements are correspondingly high. There are plenty of places on the GDL for anyone who will pay, so it stands to reason the entry requirements are relatively low. But neither of these facts has any bearing on the ease or difficulty of the course. Laying my cards on the table, I am a mature student who studied the GDL part time while working full time. I could have done a senior status part-time LLB, but I didn't see the point when I could study the GDL and get to the same point faster. My course was being partially funded by my employer, so my funding was contingent on full time work. I did not have time to do a full-time course. Most of the other students on my part-time GDL were also working full time. Others were raising small children. Many of us had spouses and/or children to support; most had mortgages and other financial responsibilities. We could not have undertaken the course on a full-time basis with a part-time job. A part-time course was the only viable option for us, which is why we were there. For the record, about half my GDL classmates were lawyers fully qualified in non-common law jurisdictions. What would be the point for them of taking another LLB?

27-Oct-2010

4:44 pm