Bar Standards Board says uni isn’t ready to resume next month, as had been planned
It’s bad news for the University of Hertfordshire as the Bar Standards Board (BSB) has blocked the re-start of its Bar Course.
After stopping the course in September the plan had been to let it continue again at the start of the New Year, but the BSB has now come out and said that Hertfordshire will “not be in a position to deliver the bar course effectively from January 2024.”
The course was only launched in September 2022. It then registered a pass rate of just 29% (of 17 candidates entered) in the BSB’s training survey, lower than any other provider, before being paused just before the start of this term in the “interests of students”. At this point Hertfordshire agreed to “put a plan in place to strengthen a number of aspects of its course delivery”. The students who were set to enrol were offered support with deferring their entry or transferring to another Bar Course provider.
But despite the university making “some progress” since the autumn, it hasn’t done enough yet to get the greenlight from the BSB.
The BSB added that 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.”
The University of Hertfordshire 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.”
More help will be offered to students who had been due to start the course in September, as well as those from Hertfordshire’s 2022 Bar Course intake who are yet to pass.