Hopes of resuming the bar course at the University of Hertfordshire - the institution with the lowest pass rate for the course - next month have been dashed by the Bar Standards Board. The regulator announced yesterday that the university will ‘not be in a position to deliver the bar course effectively’ from January 2024.
The university's bar course has been on hold since September when the BSB announced it had decided to vary its authorisation to deliver vocational bar training, originally granted in 2021. As a result, the next bar course intake was deferred to January 2024. Hertfordshire had the lowest pass rate in the regulator's latest training survey, at 29%.
The BSB’s initial decision to vary the university’s authorisation was made in the ‘interests of students’, the board said. Yesterday's statement said the university has made ‘some progress’ in implementing the changes sought by the BSB, however it will ‘not be in a position to deliver the bar course effectively from January 2024.'
It added: ‘We believed that the university needed to strengthen a number of aspects of its course delivery to ensure that its students were properly supported and that it was complying with the mandatory requirements in the Authorisation Framework.’
The next bar course intake at the University of Hertfordshire will now be deferred until the changes have been implemented and embedded. Students who enrolled on the 2023/24 course will be helped to defer entry or to transfer to another provider.
The BSB said it will continue to work with the university to ensure ‘the necessary improvements are implemented’ to enable the bar course to be offered in future.
A University of Hertfordshire spokesperson said: ‘We are working closely with the Bar Standards Board to respond to their recommendations. We are proud of our focus on increasing accessibility and diversity within the profession, and we remain confident in the long-term successful delivery of our bar programmes.’
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