Law and Medicine are being studied by the most meritorious section of students in the western world. Medium of instruction for both the disciplines are English to a great extent. In Bangladesh also, Medicine is being studied undoubtedly by the brilliant students keeping consistency with the western world but in case of law, the traditions and practices are reverse with few exceptions.  

Medium of instruction of studying law in the public universities are either English or Bangla depending upon the preference of students. There is no official obligation from the part of the universities regarding choice of language by students; though some teachers unofficially put five percent extra marks in case of writing of exam answer scripts in English. 

Students in the private universities are officially bound to study in English despite disinterest and incapability of many students. Evaluation of answer scripts to faculty members of private universities is difficult because of spelling mistakes, haphazard sentence structures and other grammatical errors. 

Recently, in a seminar a senior law professor of the country humorously disclosed the same issue in the presence of Law Minister and a Justice of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and Vice President of Bangladesh Bar Council. Regarding language South African legendary leader Nelson Mandela says, “If you teach me in a language I understand that goes to my head but if you teach me in a language I know that goes to my heart.”                 

Admission seekers in the public universities are facing tough competition to get enrolled whereas private universities are trying to woo the admission seekers with total CGPA of 5.0 in HSC and SSC. 

Department of Law of a public university is restricted to enroll only 80 to 160 students but few private universities are using unregulated opportunity in admitting around 150 to 200 law students. Other private universities are getting an average about 80 to 120 students enrolled in every trimester without or with admission test as an eye wash. Private universities are carrying out trimester system in the name of semester with the availing opportunity of admitting students as much as possible thrice in a year.

In public universities, semester system has been introduced in recent years but students are admitted only once in a year. In few public universities, newly joined teachers are not getting any course for teaching because of affluence of existing teaching faculties but in private universities a teacher is bound to take four to five courses. 

Few law teachers of public universities are allegedly uncaring towards their parent institution while the same teachers are dutiful in case of private universities forgetting teaching ethics.   

The country’s legal education and advocacy regulatory body, Bangladesh Bar Council (BBC) has little headache regarding the legal education except tightening the system of enrollment for advocates but in most developed and developing countries Bar Council is a heavy handed regulatory body of legal education as well as Advocates. 

So, imposition of a sort of restriction to the Law Schools of private universities regarding enrollment of students by UGC, MoE and BBC jointly is crucially imperative. Also coordination among these three bodies can expedite better regulation of legal education and profession. 

Also, Bar Council’s jurisdiction and powers may be widened over the Law Colleges and law Schools instead of UGC and MoE or establishing a National Council of Legal Education as proposed by Qudrat-e-Khuda Education Commission Report, 1974.      

Public university students, in many cases are allegedly captive to their teachers for marks and good results, of course, with some exceptions but many students, in private universities are CGPA driven and grade inflation is now in worrying state. Students in public universities are generally submissive to their teachers but in case of private universities the situation is not exclusively same. 

Many private university authorities are appointing professors of public universities projecting them as signboard to draw the attention of young learners. Law professors of public universities are interested to be advisers rather than working as fulltime Dean or Chairman under leave. 

In case of being advisers law professors are not obliged to take leave from parent universities and so they prefer to be advisers. Some private universities are even not getting senior professors as they are offering less amount of remuneration in the competitive market.               

In developed countries, students are introduced with the letters of law and emphasized on the spirit of law. They are reminded too that law is what the lawyers are and lawyers are what the law schools teach them. But our law students are memorizing some sections before the exam to cut good figure in the exam. 
Basically lecture method is followed in teaching law and not a single university in Bangladesh has clinical legal education, law clinics or any other forms of practical legal education. 

Most students are swallowing some dogmas of western jurisprudence, though western and oriental jurisprudence do not portray same issues in their respective developed and developing or least developed features. Law does not play the same role in the developed and developing or least developed countries.  
In recent trends, some US law schools have unveiled career and curriculum guide for law students to learn about different careers in law and to choose their courses accordingly for the development of problem-solving attitude and other skills today`s lawyers need to understand helping their clients. 

The law schools adopted such guides after a long crashing of thoughts based on extensive interviews with faculty, alumni, practicing attorneys, and other legal professionals to create a multidimensional legal education because lawyers have a valuable role to play to solve the world’s problems and that calls for more than knowing how to analyze case law. 

Although, studying of law in USA starts in the post graduate level, they are further advancing the andragogy to stay in touch with their dominating excellence in legal education in the days ahead. Also, the screening system in USA for the admission of law students is based on overall track records of students not only on previous results.       

On the other hand, the format of cognitive learning is still continuing in the law schools in Bangladesh even though case method or epistemological or empirical format of study is the most pressing need for our legal system. 

A large number of students both in public and private universities are one night performers before the exam. Disjunction among judges, advocates and legal academics is another cause of concern for the poor state of our legal education. 

Inclusion of legal ethics and therapeutic jurisprudence are confined within seminars and symposiums. Legal research is an accumulation of cut, copy and paste with some citations. Law books in some private universities are less than some personal libraries of Advocates in renowned chambers in our country.    

In neighboring India, there are more than 15 specialized law universities but in our country there is no such initiative from the government or from non government sides. In Bangladesh branch of a foreign university is not permitted under the new Private University Act (PUA), 2010 while in India there are many branches of foreign universities.

Professor N. R. Madhava Menon in India and Professor Dr. Yubaraj Sangroula in Nepal are treated as the living legends who have radically changed the legal education in the two countries but no such initiative is visible in Bangladesh except lips services.

Many legal experts in our country are in serious concern regarding the standard of legal education in the private universities in Bangladesh fearing degradation of law practice both in Bar and Bench in near future and in the long run.

In Bangladesh there are around existing 40,000 advocates and 1,500 judges with around 2,000 advocates added every year. Political parties in our countries when assuming into power are changing the name of different institutions and bodies wasting large amount of money doing immaterial works rather they can establish universities particularly law university or other educational institutions to utilize the same money in a constructive way.

Out of 32 public universities in Bangladesh only six universities have law as a discipline while around 35 private universities out of 54 are equipped with the same discipline offering Four Year LLB (Hons), Two Year LLB (Pass), One Year LLM and Two Year LLM. Few British law schools under external program are offering Three Years LLB (Hons) and around 70 Law Colleges under National University are carrying out post graduate LLB (Pass) programs.

The Writer is a Senior Lecturer of the Department of Law and Justice at Southeast University