Graduate standards in law: the current practice of external examining

(Transcript of a section of the Graduate standards in law report, 1997)

The comments below were made by a group of experienced externals at a workshop in Manchester. They illustrate the concerns which would have to be addressed before any new system were put in place or even piloted.

Purpose of the exercise

There are concerns in the academic community that this process is really a Trojan horse for a national curriculum in law. There is concern that it will erode proper professional autonomy of academic teachers and the property diversity of mission and practice of institutions.

The diversity of intake in institutions leads to diversity of programme and diversity of attainment. The process of setting standards which relate to outcomes of study should not compromise the wider access role which many institutions perform. The process of setting standards must be sensitive to the effect it might have on the variety of students whom Dearing wish to attract into higher education and the study of law. For example, criteria on literacy might have impacts on those whose second language is English or overseas students.

If the purpose of the exercise is to reassure employer/professional opinion, there is a need to recognise that there are unrealistic expectations in the professions about what higher education can deliver. Unless these unrealistic expectations are confronted as part of the process of standard setting, there will be no reassurance provided to employer/professional opinion.

Past history of prescription of content of law degrees makes academic lawyers concerned that this process is not a means to introduce greater prescription of content into the law curriculum, for example by minimum knowledge standards.

The process of setting standards needs to be clear in presenting its purpose to professional and academic communities and genuinely involving them in the process.

Feasibility

We believe that there is a great deal of consensus already among members of staff in law on which statements of standards can build.

We believe that short statements of the core areas in which attainment must be demonstrated (called here domains of graduateness), some agreement on the typology of programmes and articulation of levels in terms at least of level 1, level 3 and Masters level is attainable.

We consider that there is still a serious debate to be had about whether attainment in law should be described as a professional level of competence in the subject (a kind of licence to proceed to practice) or a demonstration of level 1/3 degree-level performance which happens to have been achieved in a particular legal subject.

There are many who would say that a qualifying law degree must be of the former kind. A student should be fit to practice in the subject , not just satisfying the requirements of level 1 of an academic programme. Thus the appropriateness of levels is called into question and needs to be debated.

We believe many academics are unfamiliar with level statements, the articulation of different domains of graduateness and the kind of criteria which are used to make standards more explicit. There needs to be an education process if the system is to work positively to improve standards or even to assure them.

Process

Given those concerns and issues to be resolved, we believe it would be politically insensitive for an expert group to appear to be handing down standards on a national basis. A process of consultation is part of the campaigning necessary to gain acceptability for the process.

Composition of expert panel

We believe that the panel should be small, but made up from the following:

• professional bodies (Law Society, Bar Council, CPE Board)
• subject associations (Association of Law Teachers, Society of Public Teachers of Law, Committee of Heads of University Law Schools, Socio-Legal Studies Association)
• a representative from non-legal employers, for example accountants
• one or two persons with current experience of classroom teaching in law and pedagogical issues

Piloting

The exercise of piloting will involve considerable effort on the part of institutions visited. They will have to re-present their programmes of study to demonstrate clearly the outcomes required by the expert panel. They will also have to comment helpfully on the different ways in which the registered external examiners are involved with them.

We believe that a range of volunteer departments could be found who would engage in the process in a constructive way. Dumping the Welsh into the first round is not helpful in terms of presentation or necessarily in terms of effectiveness.

The following table summarises the views of the externals present at the Manchester meeting as an indication of the chief areas of concern about the present system.

area of concern	major problem	problem area	not a serious problem	no answer
are you adequately specialist in the areas that you moderate?	1	8	4	2
have you enough information on the courses?		3	12
are you involved in course approval as well as assessment?	1	2	11	1
do you vet questions before they are set to students?		1	13	1
are you able to ensure fair treatment of candidates?		4	9	2
are you able to ensure assessment complies with published course descriptions given to students?		4	9	2
are you able to understand adequately the assessment and classification processes in the institution?	0.5	5.5	9
can you get access to information other than that with which you are provided?		2	11	2
are you able to talk enough to students to discover their views on courses?	3	5	6	1
do you have enough time with scripts to form a satisfactory judgement?	3.5	7.5	4
are you able to judge the quality of the programme of study effectively from the evidence available?	1	4	8	2
do you have appropriate opportunity to affect decisions in the examination board meetings you attend?		1	13	1
do you consider the comments you make in your examiner’s report are followed up?		3	9	3
do you receive feedback on how your comments are followed up?		6	7	2
do you find the form you have to complete for your external examiner’s report useful to convey your opinion?	1	4	9	1
does the level of remuneration affect your willingness to perform the task of external examiner?	1	4	10
do other work pressures within your own institution reduce your willingness to be an external?	3	4	8

Last Modified: 27 July 2010