KAMPALA, UGANDA – The government has drafted a new law to overhaul legal education by replacing the Law Development Centre (LDC) with a new, independent body and making pre-entry exams mandatory for all aspiring law students.
The proposed National Legal Examinations Bill, 2025, would establish the National Legal Examinations Centre (NLEC) to oversee legal education and administer all professional exams. Under the new system, the postgraduate diploma in legal practice, which has been offered exclusively by the LDC since 1970, would be offered by accredited universities under the supervision of the NLEC.
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Currently, law graduates apply to the LDC for a nine-month postgraduate diploma before they can be enrolled as an advocate and practice law. The new Bill proposes that law graduates will now study for an extra year at their respective universities before taking a national legal examination administered by the NLEC.
According to the Bill, all students wishing to pursue a law degree will have to pass pre-entry examinations conducted by the NLEC to be admitted to any accredited university. This would replace the current system where only Makerere University and Uganda Christian University have pre-entry exams.
The government drafted the Bill in response to growing concerns over the standardization of legal education and the LDC’s inability to handle the high volume of applicants. The LDC had to introduce two intakes for the current academic year to accommodate the large number of students.
The NLEC will be a corporate body with a governing council that includes representatives from the Judiciary, the Ministry of Education, the Uganda Law Society and other key stakeholders. The council will have the power to charge examination fees and penalize students for malpractice, with a proposed penalty of up to five years in prison.
The Bill also outlines transitional arrangements for current LDC students. Those with three or more failed exams would have to enroll at an accredited institution to retake the postgraduate diploma. Students with one or two failed exams would have two years to sit for supplementary exams administered by the NLEC.
LDC employees would continue to serve until their contracts expire, with any who are not hired by the new body to receive all their terminal benefits. The LDC had briefly scrapped pre-entry exams in 2019 due to a high failure rate but now plans to reintroduce them for the 2026 academic year.
