Integrate legal education in school
Understanding the language of law is crucial for laypersons, but it is tricky for the public ear.
The difficulty includes understanding court proceedings, one’s rights in and outside the courtroom, choice of language and the State’s responsibility to provide a lawyer for people who cannot afford one.
Most Malawians are legal illiterate, so it is easier for someone to break the law unknowingly and get into trouble.
Of course, the legal maxim has it that ignorance of the law is no excuse.
This suggests that individuals cannot avoid legal responsibility or consequences for their actions by claiming that they were unaware of the law.
In other words, the law does not exempt anyone from being held to account for their actions.
Therefore, in societies governed by the rule of law, legal literacy is a cornerstone of informed citizenship and active participation in the democratic process.
It promotes legal awareness among the citizenry. It helps people understand their legal rights.
This can be acquired through one’s experience and education. The Ministry of Education is best-placed to ensure that initiatives to promote the concept of legal literacy in society are achieved.
Thus, teaching law in primary and secondary schools could equip learners with the appropriate knowledge, values, attitudes and behaviour to contribute to the entrenchment and improvement a of the rule of law in our society.
If everyone is compulsorily exposed to law, the citizenry could have basic knowledge of law to keep their eyes open to things happening around them or avoid certain acts that contravene the law.
Ignorance of legal knowledge increases the likelihood and impact of legal troubles.
Due to lack of knowledge, legal issues appear bigger than they are and the individual feels unnecessarily intimidated.
For instance, many of Malawians do not appear to know that the Legal Aid Act enacted in 1964 guarantees poor persons access to legal representation for free and at a contribution to those with low income.
With 90 percent of children attending school, it is essential to start the awareness in primary school, with the most simplified version of elements of the law to capture the wider audience before some drop out.
When educators incorporate social constructivism into the teaching of law to such pupils, it can create a more interactive, engaging and dynamic learning environment.
By leveraging social interactions, collaboration and exploration of real-world legal issues, educators can help pupils develop a deeper understanding of legal principles and application in society.
Reports show high dropout rates, especially during the transition from lower to upper classes in primary school and the transition from primary to secondary level.
This means that by the time the pupils quit school, they would have at least a slight idea of the laws of Malawi just like they do with mathematics.
This can help achieve legal literacy and empowerment at a small scale.
Those who get to secondary school are mature enough to understand terminologies and concepts better than those at the primary level.
This is the level where the law should be administered with the main aim of achieving legal literacy among the Malawian citizens.
For this to be realistic, the law should make legal literacy a compulsory subject in secondary school taught by teachers who are conversant with the law.
The legislation should also make it obligatory for the Ministry of Education to provide in-service training to teachers with little or no knowledge of the law.
Just as English and Mathematics are compulsory subjects, law should be a compulsory subject so that by the end of secondary education, whether one chooses to study law or not, one should be legally literate.
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The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of the publisher. —Editor
