Honeyman: Clearing the bar | Sun.Star

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As always, the passing rate for the Bar examinations is around 20 percent. Correspondingly, 80 percent fail.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines Office of the Bar Confidant has recently issued statistical data for new and repeater candidates for the 2014 Bar Examinations. The results are informative.

A total of 5,984 candidates took the 2014 Bar Exams, of whom 1,126 or 18.8 percent passed.

Of the 5,984 candidates, 3,024 took the 2014 Bar Exams for the first time. Of these 840 (27.8 percent) passed. For the repeaters, only 286 out of 2,960 (9.66 percent) passed. The lesson seems to be that if a student wishes to pass, he needs to pass first time. Repeater students have to do much work simply to reach the failed standard they obtained in the previous year.

The passing rate varies extraordinarily from one academic institution to another. At the top of the league, the University of the Philippines had 97 passers out of its 2014 batch of 128 students. This represents a passing rate of 75.8 percent. The only other institutions with a passing rate of over 50 per cent are Ateneo Davao, Ateneo Manila, San Beda Manila, University of Cebu, University of San Carlos, and the University of Santo Tomas.

Law schools in the Western Visayas are far behind. University of San Agustin-Iloilo had seven passers from its 2014 batch of 23 candidates. This indicates a passing rate of 30.4 per cent. In Bacolod City, the University of St. La Salle (USLS) had three passers from its 2014 batch of 15. The University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos (UNO-R) also had three passers but from a larger batch of 32 students.

For repeater students, only one out of 27 candidates from UNO-R passed. USLS fared better, four out of 19 candidates passed.

The geographical variations are disturbing. Should it really be necessary for students to go to Diliman if they want a realistic chance of passing?

I hope the administrations of USLS and UNO-R have inquests to find out why their results are perennially unsatisfactory.

Chief Justice Sereno says: "there is a need for the deans to undertake an extensive review on how their courses are being taught and how they recruit the faculty, and even the students who are applying to take up law."

I hope local law schools do not see their courses simply as opportunities to make profits. What proportion of the students' fees are used to pay the teachers? If the teachers, many of whom are part-timers, are not paid well, then it is only human nature not to give high priority to their teaching commitments. Anecdotal evidence from students suggests that the absenteeism rate amongst teachers is significant. This is regrettable. Many students are working students with limited time. Teachers' absences create an unacceptable waste of this precious resource.

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