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Volume 11, Issue 6 
REGIONAL NEWS
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REGIONAL NEWS
In June, the Caribbean Examinations Council introduced a new grading scale for the Secondary Education Certificate examination that it administers in 16 participating countries.
The new six-point grading scheme replaced the old scale, which consisted of five overall grades and four supplementary “profile” grades for performance in examination subjects. The council has determined that the three highest grades in the new scale (I, II and III) should be regarded as equivalent to the two highest grades (I and II) in the old scale. The council has advised tertiary institutions and ministries of education in participating countries that grades I through III should be considered as satisfying the entry requirement for four-year programs at universities. They should also satisfy the entry requirements for post-secondary non-degree programs at community colleges, teachers’ colleges and any tertiary institution offering programs that require the Secondary Education Certificate for admission. The new grading scale ensures a sharper distinction between the quality of performance at each grade. - Caribbean Examinations Council
A company best known for its test-preparation courses announced in September that it was starting the nation’s first online law degree program.
Kaplan Educational Centers says the program will allow students to earn a juris doctor degree without leaving home.
But spokesmen for both the American Bar Association (ABA) and the Association of American Law Schools said they doubted that any online curriculum could offer students the equivalent of a traditional law program.
The program, to be known as the Concord University School of Law, is the latest venture by Kaplan Educational Centers, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company, which has 1,200 locations in the United States and abroad.
The four-year law program opened for business on Oct. 6. Annual tuition is $4,200.
Students read lectures on the Internet and have access to a comprehensive, online library with links to all of the resources they need, according to a spokesman for the new program.
Students will follow a curriculum that school officials say is similar to that of many schools accredited by the ABA, although Concord has no immediate plans to seek such accreditation.
Under current ABA guidelines, an online law program would not be eligible for accreditation.
But those guidelines have been challenged by critics who believe they are inflexible, and the U.S. Department of Education has ordered the association to reconsider how applicable all of its requirements are to today’s law schools.
Students who graduate from ABA-accredited law schools may take the bar exam in any state, while those who graduate from unaccredited schools are much more limited in their choices.
“There is certainly an opportunity for distance learning in the educational process, but it would be very difficult to offer an entire law program on line,” said J. Hurt, deputy consultant on legal education for the ABA.
Jack Goetz, dean of the online law school, countered that his law program was not trying to duplicate what traditional law schools do, but that it would allow students who would otherwise be shut out of a legal career to pursue one.
The Concord University School of Law Web site is located at: http://www.concord.kaplan.edu.
- Chronicle of Higher Education
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