Barrister training: Students well informed about prospects
The evidence “does not support anxiety about standards” for qualifying as a barrister, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) has said.
The regulator also said the number of students enrolling on Bar training courses was up by 10% in 2023/24 compared to three years earlier, and warned that this “may lead to a lower proportion of students going on to pupillage”.
A paper presenting its annual training report to the BSB board last week said some of its “key stakeholders” had expressed the concern that standards were at risk.
“In particular, they say that too many students are entering the vocational component of training (post-graduate Bar courses) with limited chance of success in passing the Bar course and in obtaining pupillage.
“They argue that, as well as exploiting students, this negatively impacts student experience for all, and standards of training are suffering as a result.”
But the BSB said the evidence did not support “anxiety about standards”.
It explained: “It is not the BSB’s role to limit ambition and demand, provided that prospective students are well-informed about their prospects.
“The Legal Service Board’s statutory guidance on education and training requires that regulators place no inappropriate direct or indirect restrictions on the numbers entering the profession.
“We provide information on our website for prospective students to enable them to understand their chances of success, both in the vocational Bar courses, and in progression to pupillage.
“Success rates for pupillage applications show that in the 2020/21 cohort of students, slightly under half of home-based course graduates (46%) have moved onto pupillage.
“Many overseas students enrol on the Bar courses for reasons other than progressing to pupillage; our latest statistics show that overseas students now form the majority.”
The regulator said records showed that most students (around eight in 10) passed the former Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC). The BSB was monitoring data for the new courses introduced after the training reforms in 2020, but the first cohorts had not yet exhausted their resit opportunities.
Further, a review of Bar training providers’ admission arrangements, published last month, showed they were continuing to meet the BSB’s requirements.
Asssessment standards were “rigorous”, both in the core subjects marked centrally and the skills subjects marked locally, and there was a new framework to ensure consistent standards of advocacy training in pupillage.
The number of enrollments on the course rose by nearly 10% in three years to 2,406 in 2023/24, around half of whom were originally based overseas.
Meanwhile, the proportion of UK Bar students from minority ethnic backgrounds fell last year from 47% to 42% – but still higher than the peak of almost 37% in the final years of the BPTC.
On cost, the BSB calculated the average for the new Bar course as £15,700 in 2023/24, more than £4,000 less than would have been charged by the BPTC course when adjusted for inflation.
Fees paid across all course providers rose from around £29m in 2019/20 to £34m in 2022/23, and more than £37.5m in 2023/24.
The BSB said an increase in student numbers had “largely made up for the decrease in tuition fees in terms of the total revenue generated by Bar training courses across all providers”.
The proportion of students with a lower second-class degree has increased in recent years – it was 22% in 2023/24.
Leave a Comment