2011 CLAT levels playing field; IDIA to pay CLAT fees for all in need

Thursday, 23 December 2010 By Legally India Law schools

NUJS Kolkata has announced the 2011 CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) with radical changes, including distribution through the Indian post office network and the ditching of static general knowledge and legal knowledge questions. Meanwhile, the law school diversity project IDIA has pledged to fund admission fees for all students in need.

NUJS professor Shamnad Basheer said: “There are a number of changes. For one, this year, CLAT has tied up with the Indian post office to distribute the forms much more widely. Last two to three years, it was only two to three banks per state (and mainly states having metro cities).

“This year, we’re distributing through all major post offices in every state – so that there is greater awareness and all sections of society have access to forms.”

“Further, no static GK questions will be asked (when did Humayun die?). Only current affairs questions (questions between April 2010 and April 2011) will be asked,” he added. “Thirdly, no legal knowledge will be tested. Only legal aptitude/legal reasoning will be tested. Which means students don’t need to study legal principles before they write the exam—only their process of reasoning will be tested.”

The CLAT brochures and application forms would now sell for Rs 150 from post offices throughout India and at each of the eleven national law schools participating in the CLAT. Application fees will be Rs 2,500 and Rs 2,000 for scheduled castes and scheduled tribe (SC/ST) candidates, with an application deadline of 2 April 2011.

The exam will be held in May 2011 and full details are available on its new website.

Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA) project

NUJS VC Prof Singh on IDIA {youtube|320|240}Hr6QGbf4iRg {/youtube}

Basheer was the architect of the IDIA project, which is training and preparing students from underprivileged backgrounds for the CLAT exam.

The project would pay the CLAT fees to IDIA scholars but Basheer said that IDIA would now also introduce a means-tested sponsorship potentially for all CLAT takers in need of assistance.

“We have … decided to sponsor the forms of all other CLAT aspirants who may not be able to afford it. We will of course do this only after verifying their financial capabilities,” explained Basheer.

IDIA is supported by a number of law schools and lawyers and law firms, including Trilegal, Krishnamurthy, Wadia Ghandy.

Common Law Admission Test (CLAT)Shamnad Basheer NUJS Kolkata

Comments

Anonymous guest 23 Dec 2010, 22:48

+0 -0

Fantastic effort by NUJS. These are great changes to make CLAT inclusive and better.

Anonymous guest 25 Dec 2010, 22:22

Excellent work! This is exactly what is required to make NLUs more accessible.

Anonymous guest 26 Dec 2010, 03:07

My daughter is interested in appearing for CLAT 2011.I would like to know if there is any finacial aid to girl students of widows.

LegalPoet 26 Dec 2010, 20:41

Ma'am, if your income is below a certain level then the IDIA funds can help you.

Anonymous guest 27 Dec 2010, 01:09

while it is quite a laudable effort on part of IDIA-NUJS to make the CLAT questions more 'level fielded', but what I worry is that such changes should be institutionalised in CLAT itself and not be like a roulette which would depend on which NLU would conduct the exam. On a separate note CLAT committee should 'force' truant NLUs (read NLU-O and NLU-D) which are outside the ambit of CLAT to join it forthright so that NLU hopefuls dont have to spend money and energy on multiple exams.

Anonymous guest 28 Dec 2010, 01:24

@5:
I guess there is another case which is needed to be filed in a HC, to integrate NLU-D and NLU-O in the Clat exam.

Anonymous guest 28 Dec 2010, 04:37

why would you want to FORCE them. They dont want to come together. A separate exam allows people in delhi to mint more money. You cant impose your will on them

Anonymous guest 28 Dec 2010, 05:37

If your daughter makes it to the NLUs, which I'm sure she will, I believe there are various financial aid options. Other than those options which are offered by the institutions, one can always approach legal firms for financial help, and there's bank loans as well which she can repay post graduation.

Anonymous guest 1 Jan 2011, 06:07

@ 8 and 3 - at the rate the tuition fees are increasing at NLUs, to get to pay fees of 5 yrs + interest (somewhere between 8-10 lakhs) in 3-4 years post graduation with a decent job one needs to be in top 2/3rd of the class at NLS, NALSAR, NUJS; top 1/3rd of NLUB, NLUJ; within top 10 of the class at the rest of the newer NLUs. Thus it is quite important to choose the uni very carefully.

Anonymous guest 8 Jan 2011, 03:02

Dear Sir,
I am very happy to read the article about CLAT 2011, Steps taken in this regard is very good, and hope students will sure get benefit from these changes.

regards

Ambrish Tandon
(Advocate)
Kanpur
9839533673
9336110518

Anonymous guest 8 Jan 2011, 05:00

@10: LOL!

Anonymous guest 12 Jan 2011, 10:53

I doubt everyone in the top 2/3 of any college gets a decent job even these days leave alone 3-4 years later. At least law schools have stopped bragging about their "fantastic" placements. Just the "Law School" tag gets you nowhere these days. Fact remains that a rank 10 at the newest law school will have a greater chance of being picked by Amarchand than a rank 30 at NLSIU.

Anonymous guest 26 Jan 2011, 01:46

Its actually a good project in order to increase the competitor base for a healthier competition. I appreciate this initiative and i take this point in stating something which i feel is really important for regaining the past glory of law schools. Ever since CLAT has been instituted, the level of reasoning questions has gone down..tracing from 2008 to 2010....I sincerely hope that the NUJS team will test the students harder on reasoning than the last couple of years question paper so as to get the students who have a sound reasoning n not the one which a person of a very normal IQ may crack. Law school is meant to have such people who can pursue the legacy been built by the lawyers in the past such as Alladi Krishna Swami Iyer n B N Rao.....also to have creative people n hone their skills so as to produce future P N Bhagwati n Krishna Iyer...Hope that NUJS team would read it and give this comment its due weight...

Jyoti 30 Jan 2011, 14:17

These changes introduced by NUJS are extremely farsighted and long-awaited ever since the first CLAT took off in 2008 followed by regrettably sorry repeats in 2009 - NALSAR and 2010 - NLIU Bhopal (which must be the worst ever entrance exam conducted by an institution that intends to be ranked in the top five among its kind).

The reduction is fees is admirable and will go a long way in bringing good legal education closer to students from poor income families though the fee structure would make a money-lender blush with NLU Jodhpur charging as much (if not more) than many engineering and medical colleges (but perhaps that is due to their disproportionate focus on core science over law).

The omission of requirement to select preferences at the time of application is well thought change. Many candidates have in the past made poor choices in their preferences (no doubt influenced by equally poor rankings such as Outlook and India Today) and regretted it later. Now selection of institution will happen only after results are declared - which allows candidates to conduct some serious research in these five months.

I hope the pattern of questions is also revised to include more logical reasoning and legal aptitude and less 'GK' style questions.

Perhaps in coming years, the different reservations in all these institutions could be made uniform instead of what we have now - with NLIU Bhpoal reserving half its intake for the natives and NALSAR doing the same for women.

This only goes to show how much the CLAT is affected by the institution conducting it and underlines the need for a more permanent setup so that mistakes are not repeated and experience put to use.

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