Legal Education In India: Issues And Challenges

Reshma R Prabhu, Faculty of Law, SRM University, Delhi NCR, enrolled as an Advocate under Bar Council of Kerala

ABSTRACT

“Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself”- John Dewey

Education is a tool which is used to bring in social change. Similarly, legal education plays an indispensable role in creating law abiding citizens with values like compliance to human rights, fulfilling social responsibility and so on. Therefore, it could be said that the lawyers are the driving force to transform the society. According to Law Commission of India, legal education is the science that imparts knowledge regarding principles and provisions of law to students so as to enable them to enter the legal profession. To achieve this primary goal, there has to be an updated curriculum which nurtures the modern development in the society and a set of experts with regard to the delivery of legal education. The main nuance emerged here is the outdated curriculum and the decreased level of quality of legal education. The Honourable Kerala High Court on various occasions expressed their deep concern over the deterioration of quality of legal education. The Court further noted that the legal education being imparted across the country is in deep crisis. There has been an absence of adopting a pragmatic approach with regard to the delivery of instructions especially when it is a highly practical discipline. Therefore, this paper sought to explore and analyse the various challenges and issues prevalent in the legal education sector and also analyses whether there is a necessity to revamp the education model adopted across the nation.

Keywords: legal education, challenges, India, reforms