Dismal Results
Fr. Rannie Aquino
Of the five thousand or so examinees, 17 percent passed the Bar Examinations this year. That is dismal by any count. Of course, there surface, as always, the perennial questions: What went wrong with the examinations? What is the matter with our law schools? Why did incompetent students slither through the system of checks that law schools are supposed to set in place and make it to the Bar Examinations? Is something seriously the matter with our law students? It is rumored that only 23 examinees (not percent of examinees!) passed labor law. What has made this rather dull subject an overnight killer? What has become so laborious about labor law?
Fr. Rannie Aquino
Of the five thousand or so examinees, 17 percent passed the Bar Examinations this year. That is dismal by any count. Of course, there surface, as always, the perennial questions: What went wrong with the examinations? What is the matter with our law schools? Why did incompetent students slither through the system of checks that law schools are supposed to set in place and make it to the Bar Examinations? Is something seriously the matter with our law students? It is rumored that only 23 examinees (not percent of examinees!) passed labor law. What has made this rather dull subject an overnight killer? What has become so laborious about labor law?
What we have are test results, and it is important to stress that, because that rather evident premise seems to be lost to those who search in earnest for answers to these questions. That might also be a salutary reminder to those who either made it through the examinations, or failed to. There is a difference, so easily overlooked either in the euphoria of passing or in the anguish of failing, between the person and the test result. The latter is a function of the test itself and so it is that many times, even very brilliant persons fail tests because so many tests are ill-constructed. I am not saying this of the recent Bar Examinations, but that is a possibility that cannot be glossed over. And I have always stressed the point that by no stretch of the imagination or of legal fiction can the worth and even the intelligence of a person be equated with test-results. In the technical language of research and measurement theory, a test is no guarantee of its predictive validity. That is the reason that educators insist that tests be validated.
The transcripts of stenographic notes (known as TSN to lawyers) bear ample evidence of the merciless massacre of English inside the courtroom by many who have passed the Bar Examination, an examination that is purported to be able to determine articulateness. More telling yet is the sheer illogicality by which many cases are argued in memoranda and briefs drafted by those whose names have been solemnly inscribed in the Roll of Attorneys. Law professors will tell you that many whom they did not count on passing the examinations made it while many who, it was hoped, would land the school’s name on the roster of top-notchers did not. God is most certainly not playing dice here, and if he is not, then these bizarre results must be explained by causal factors on earth. Closer to home, one must look at the students, the instruction and the examination. Between the professors and the examiners, the former are the more competent judges of their students. A regular professor will often have a law student for two or three subjects in the course of the four-year stretch that is law school. The examiner sees only the unnamed answer sheet. And if a professor adjudges the student to be adequately knowledgeable in the law and an examiner disagrees, it is the former evaluation that should be the more credible. This, of course, is not what happens in the Bar Examination where it is the examiner whose judgment prevails. But then it can always be claimed that the examiner is the more acute expert in the law compared to the professor — a proposition, however, that is patent in its dubiousness! We have had examiners in the past who should not have been allowed even to draft quizzes!
As for law schools, the Legal Education Board has been breathing down hard on the necks of law deans, closing non-performing law schools (defined as those law schools that do not pass any of their graduates in the Bar for a given number of years) and downgrading others. Visits have been frequent and regular. Important memoranda and orders have issued from LEB for the guidance of law schools. Law professors have been offered courses relevant to legal education for the past two years, but it cannot be denied that much remains to be done. If anything at all, dismal results should make clear the fallacy of the equation: attorney-at-law = law professor. “Atty” indicates license to practice law, not expertise to teach it nor does it guarantee the scholarship demanded by a professorial chair. That seems to be just the trouble: that we still have to arrive at the necessary realization that legal academia is a discipline quite distinct from litigation! We have so many teaching law who cannot even produce a decent research paper that respected learned journals will comfortably accept! And yet the competence for scholarly research is required of every professor in all other disciplines!
For some time now, it has been the avowed policy of examiners to ask “basic” questions, but there remains the unresolved problem of the definition of “basic”. Apparently, some examiners are intent at showing just how vast “basic” can be, and, in the course, tangentially flattering themselves at their superior, almost mystic grasp, of the hidden intricacies of the “basics” of the law that are hidden from their less sophisticated brethren. That is what Collingwood calls “the death of meaning by a hundred qualifications”. Basic is not really basic!
Finally, just what is being tested? Some law professors believe that adequate knowledge means photographic memory of provisions of codes, statutes and high court pronouncements. Though a parody of what all educators take to be desirable thinking skills, many law professors doggedly cling to this bankrupt creed. Others are of the persuasion that the real test is more pragmatic: the ability of the student to resolve cases — as varied as human ingenuity and malice may be — by applying the law. Still others that will include me think that adequate knowledge means being thoughtful about the law so that one understands why the provisions are there and the policies and purposes they serve. Adequate knowledge is philosophical knowledge — and even now, I can imagine the howl of derision that follows this pronouncement, but it is my belief. Fortunately, I think I am in good company because I have exchanged views with Dr. Raul Pangalanan, Dean Cesar Villanueva, Fr. Joaquin Bernas, Dean Pacifico Agabin, Dean Sedfrey Candelaria and Chief Justice Reynato Puno — all sterling legal academics — and they apparently share the persuasion! But if different examiners go about their tasks preparing test questions, with divergent expectations of students and irreconcilable ideas of what to test, should it be any surprise that we get a result like seventeen percent?
Finally, is anything really the matter with 17 percent passing the Bar Examination? For some time, the Japanese Bar Examinations yielded far lower results, and there were no broken bones and broken hearts, because that was what was expected of the Bar, and it was a low passing rate deliberately chosen to keep the species in check!
Those who did not make it to the 17-percent club should take comfort in the thought that with so many fundamental questions unanswered, no one is really quite sure what 17 percent means!
The transcripts of stenographic notes (known as TSN to lawyers) bear ample evidence of the merciless massacre of English inside the courtroom by many who have passed the Bar Examination, an examination that is purported to be able to determine articulateness. More telling yet is the sheer illogicality by which many cases are argued in memoranda and briefs drafted by those whose names have been solemnly inscribed in the Roll of Attorneys. Law professors will tell you that many whom they did not count on passing the examinations made it while many who, it was hoped, would land the school’s name on the roster of top-notchers did not. God is most certainly not playing dice here, and if he is not, then these bizarre results must be explained by causal factors on earth. Closer to home, one must look at the students, the instruction and the examination. Between the professors and the examiners, the former are the more competent judges of their students. A regular professor will often have a law student for two or three subjects in the course of the four-year stretch that is law school. The examiner sees only the unnamed answer sheet. And if a professor adjudges the student to be adequately knowledgeable in the law and an examiner disagrees, it is the former evaluation that should be the more credible. This, of course, is not what happens in the Bar Examination where it is the examiner whose judgment prevails. But then it can always be claimed that the examiner is the more acute expert in the law compared to the professor — a proposition, however, that is patent in its dubiousness! We have had examiners in the past who should not have been allowed even to draft quizzes!
As for law schools, the Legal Education Board has been breathing down hard on the necks of law deans, closing non-performing law schools (defined as those law schools that do not pass any of their graduates in the Bar for a given number of years) and downgrading others. Visits have been frequent and regular. Important memoranda and orders have issued from LEB for the guidance of law schools. Law professors have been offered courses relevant to legal education for the past two years, but it cannot be denied that much remains to be done. If anything at all, dismal results should make clear the fallacy of the equation: attorney-at-law = law professor. “Atty” indicates license to practice law, not expertise to teach it nor does it guarantee the scholarship demanded by a professorial chair. That seems to be just the trouble: that we still have to arrive at the necessary realization that legal academia is a discipline quite distinct from litigation! We have so many teaching law who cannot even produce a decent research paper that respected learned journals will comfortably accept! And yet the competence for scholarly research is required of every professor in all other disciplines!
For some time now, it has been the avowed policy of examiners to ask “basic” questions, but there remains the unresolved problem of the definition of “basic”. Apparently, some examiners are intent at showing just how vast “basic” can be, and, in the course, tangentially flattering themselves at their superior, almost mystic grasp, of the hidden intricacies of the “basics” of the law that are hidden from their less sophisticated brethren. That is what Collingwood calls “the death of meaning by a hundred qualifications”. Basic is not really basic!
Finally, just what is being tested? Some law professors believe that adequate knowledge means photographic memory of provisions of codes, statutes and high court pronouncements. Though a parody of what all educators take to be desirable thinking skills, many law professors doggedly cling to this bankrupt creed. Others are of the persuasion that the real test is more pragmatic: the ability of the student to resolve cases — as varied as human ingenuity and malice may be — by applying the law. Still others that will include me think that adequate knowledge means being thoughtful about the law so that one understands why the provisions are there and the policies and purposes they serve. Adequate knowledge is philosophical knowledge — and even now, I can imagine the howl of derision that follows this pronouncement, but it is my belief. Fortunately, I think I am in good company because I have exchanged views with Dr. Raul Pangalanan, Dean Cesar Villanueva, Fr. Joaquin Bernas, Dean Pacifico Agabin, Dean Sedfrey Candelaria and Chief Justice Reynato Puno — all sterling legal academics — and they apparently share the persuasion! But if different examiners go about their tasks preparing test questions, with divergent expectations of students and irreconcilable ideas of what to test, should it be any surprise that we get a result like seventeen percent?
Finally, is anything really the matter with 17 percent passing the Bar Examination? For some time, the Japanese Bar Examinations yielded far lower results, and there were no broken bones and broken hearts, because that was what was expected of the Bar, and it was a low passing rate deliberately chosen to keep the species in check!
Those who did not make it to the 17-percent club should take comfort in the thought that with so many fundamental questions unanswered, no one is really quite sure what 17 percent means!