David's keynote address at LILI 2006 examined how law teachers can use their imagination to light up the knowledge, skills and values that law students seek to attain during their law degrees. This second part of his paper discusses the criteria stated for the revised South African LLB programme and how these compare with the preliminary findings of a survey of law students at two South African universities regarding the knowledge, values and skills they would like to acquire during their law degrees.
The first part of the paper focuses on the importance of using interactive teaching methods to teach effectively and creatively in order to motivate students to participate actively in the learning process. A number of imaginative ways of providing student-centred legal education are illustrated. Contact David on e-mail: mcquoidm@ukzn.ac.za.
The legal landscape in South Africa changed dramatically after the first democratic elections in 1994. In order to deal with the legislative and other changes required to make the transition from autocratic minority rule to a broad-based democracy a number of legal forums were convened by the Ministry of Justice to re-examine different aspects of legal practice, legal qualifications and legal education. Amongst these were forums dealing specifically with legal education and the university law curriculum (see for instance, Ministry of Justice, 1995).
A number of special legal education forums were convened and attended by the law deans of the country’s 21 law faculties under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice. The result was that by 1997 there was agreement by the deans – some of them reluctantly - that the LLB degree in South Africa should be changed from a three year postgraduate to a four year undergraduate programme. At the same time, in order to reflect the changes in the country's democratic transition, the deans made a number of recommendations regarding the new law curriculum. There was no mandatory uniform law curriculum requirement and each university had the freedom to decide what it should include in its programme. (For the core law courses offered at most South African universities see Kaburise, 2001:389). As a result the deans could only make recommendations – their suggestions were not binding (see McQuoid-Mason, 1998:14-15, and Iya, 2001).
Despite their differences the deans were able to reach consensus that the new law degree should take into account that (McQuoid-Mason, 1998:14-15):
In respect of skills courses the law deans suggested the following (McQuoid-Mason, 1998:15):
The deans also agreed that law schools should encourage community service work by law students in law clinics and street law programmes. (Law clinics were first set up at South African university law faculties in the early 1970s, and by the early 1980s the majority of universities had clinics - see McQuoid-Mason, 1982:139-163. The first street law programmes were set up in South African universities in the mid 1980s - see McQuoid-Mason, 1994:347-371.)
The major break with past practices regarding the LLB degree was the recognition by the law deans of the need for an integrated approach to legal education, rather than the traditional approach that separated the theory of law from practice. The deans accepted that it is not enough to provide students with knowledge about the law without developing their skills to apply such knowledge or inculcating them with the necessary values concerning the practice of law, inadvertently miroring the approach suggested in the MacCrate Report (American Bar Association, 1992).
In recent years the South African Law Deans Association (SALDA) has been critical of the four year undergraduate LLB programme, largely on the grounds that unlike in other Commonwealth countries the majority of South African secondary school students who qualify for university entrance are under-prepared for legal studies. There seems to be some support for a return to the three year postgraduate LLB programme. (Similar views were expressed during the introduction of the four year undergraduate LLB degree, as observed by the present writer during the negotiations in his capacity as President of the Society of University Law Teachers of Southern Africa.)
As has been mentioned the revised South African LLB curriculum places greater emphasis on skills and values than in the past. This emphasis suggested by the law deans for the revised LLB degree has been encapsulated in the SAQA exit level outcomes for the LLB degree (SAQA, 2002) and are listed as follows:
For earlier SAQA suggestions see Iya, 2001:359.
The SAQA exit level outcomes for the degree include supporting specific outcomes and associated assessment criteria for each outcome. The latter indicate that law students should be assessed, amongst other things, by performance tasks such as written and oral assignments, projects, case studies, moot courts, role plays, mock trials, client counselling exercises, observation and assessment of work in live client clinics - all with the emphasis on problem solving.
The above methods of assessment are clearly reliant on students being exposed to interactive learning methods based on the types of clinical legal education techniques outlined in the first part of this paper, rather than the traditional lecture method.
The question to be asked is: How do the SAQA exit level outcomes measure up to the expectations of South African law students themselves?
In order to establish how the SAQA exit level outcomes measure up to the expectations of South African law students a preliminary sample of expectations from law students at two South African universities, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban (UKZN), and at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth (NMMU), was taken and analysed. The expectations were gathered in 2005 in an open-ended questionnaire designed by the present writer and distributed by colleagues, who requested their students to record the knowledge, skills and values they regarded as the most important to learn during their LLB degrees.
Open-ended questionnaires were administered to third and fourth year law students at the UKZN and the NMMU. Students were told that the questionnaire was anonymous, but that they need not complete it if they did not wish to do so. The questioannire asked them to list what they thought were the seven most important law courses and the five most important legal skills and values they would like to learn during their LLB degree:
118 students from the UKZN and 83 from the NMMU responded, reflecting the views of about 25% of the students. The preliminary results of the survey are listed below.
The most important courses were calculated by totaling the most frequently cited choices, ie the course mentioned most often was cited as the most important, the next most cited course as the next most important, etc, resulting in the list of seven most important courses.
The preliminary results of the survey showed that the UKZN students listed, in order of priority, the following courses as the seven most important: contract, delict (tort), commercial law, family law, constitutional law, criminal procedure and civil procedure. They included property, evidence and adminstrative law in their top ten courses. Likewise, the NMMU students listed, in order of priority: contract, commercial law, property, criminal law, family law, delict (tort) and civil procedure. They included labour law, evidence and criminal procedure in their top ten courses.
The preliminary findings indicate that all the courses identified by the law students were the same as the core courses recommended by the law deans in 1997 during the revision of the LLB (Kaburise, 2001:368-369). The courses named are also regarded as core courses at both the UKZN and the NMMU. This factor may or may not have influenced the students in their choice - the questionnaire did not make clear that the students should use their imagination to compile a 'wish list' of law courses, rather than what they were already offered by the law school. These courses can all be taught by using interactive teaching methods in addition to traditional lectures.
As in the case of the law courses, the most important legal skills were calculated by totalling the most frequently cited choices, ie the skill mentioned most often was cited as the most important, the next most cited skill as the next most important, etc, resulting in the list of the five most important skills.
The preliminary results of the survey indicate that the UKZN students listed trial advocacy, research and problem solving, legal writing, dealing with ethical issues and litigation skills as the five most important skills they would like to learn during the LLB. The NMMU students listed trial advocacy, research and problem solving, legal writing, interviewing and counselling, and litigation as the five most important skills they wanted to acquire. Judging by some of the comments in the questionnaires the lists of skills seemed to have been more of a 'wish list' than what the students were actually experiencing in their law degrees. A follow-up question should have been included in the questionnaire to determine if any of the suggested skills were in fact being taught at the relevant law school.
These preliminary findings indicate that most of the skills identified by the law students at the UKZN and the NMMU are similar to those recommended by the law deans during the revision of the LLB (see McQuoid-Mason, 1998:15). In addition, they are also almost identical to the exit outcomes listed by the SAQA. The majority of these skills can only be taught by interactive teaching methods, and this is implicit in the SAQA assessment criteria.
As in the case of the law courses and skills the most important legal values were calculated by totalling the most frequently cited choices, ie the value mentioned most often was cited as the most important, the next most cited value as the next most important, etc, resulting in the list of the five most important values.
The preliminary findings of the survey were that the five most important values identified by the UKZN law students in order of priority were respect for human rights, respect for ethical rules, respect for the rule of law, respect for other people and personal honesty and integrity. The values listed by law students from NMMU in order of importance were respect for legal ethics, respect for human rights, respect for the rule of law, respect for other people and personal honesty and integrity. As in the case of legal skills it was not clear whether these were 'wish lists' of the values that the students would like to have been exposed to or whether they already formed part of the curriculum at their institutions. As suggested for the skills survey, a follow-up question should have been included in the questionnaire to determine if any of the suggested values were in fact being taught at the relevant law school.
The need to inculcate respect for ethical rules was one of the issues identified by the law deans during the revision of the LLB degree (McQuoid-Mason, 1998:15). The emphasis on the need for students to respect human rights, the rule of law and other people was included in one of the listed exit outcomes for the LLB mentioned by the SAQA (Outcome number 9 states: "The learner can participate as a responsible citizen in the promotion of a just society and a democratic and constitutional state under the rule of law".)
Traditionally law teachers use the lecture method to impart knowledge to law students. There is little emphasis on skills or values development other than case analysis and problem solving. Most classroom activity focuses on the law teacher rather than the law student.
In order to illuminate the teaching of law for the benefit of their students, law teachers should acknowledge the following:
Although the revised undergraduate South African LLB programme has been criticised for other reasons, it has placed greater emphasis on skills and values education than the previous postgraduate LLB programme. (One of the main criticisms is that undergraduate law students are under-prepared for university becuase of the poor secondary school education system experienced by the majority of black South Africans arising from years of apartheid mismanagement based on discriminatory allocation of resources.) These skills and values have been reflected in the SAQA exit level outcomes for the LLB degree. The assessment criteria for measuring success in skills and values clearly indicate that interactive learning methods must be used.
The preliminary findings from an open-ended sample survey of law students at two South African universities indicate that in general the expectations of students regarding the knowledge, skills and values they wish to acquire during the LLB degree are in line with those suggested by the law deans for the revised LLB degree and recognised by the SAQA. However, these tentative findings need to be treated with caution, because whether or not law students were in fact being taught the desired skills and values at their institutions was not clear.
What this paper has hoped to show is that in order to illuminate legal studies and to motivate, and meet the expectations of, law students interactive learning methods should be used to supplement, and in some cases supplant, traditional lecture methods. Only then will Confucius’ age old adage about people understanding what they are learning apply to law students.
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