The IDIA diversity initiative’ second national aptitude test (I-NAT) has scaled up to 19 test centres, aiming to reach more than 400 schools across the country to select students from non-traditional backgrounds to take the Common Law Admissions Test (CLAT) and enter top national law schools.
A total of 19 centres across 14 cities, compared to 12 test centres last year, will offer the I-NAT with those selected then receiving free CLAT 2012 and 2013 preparation through IMS coaching centres.
Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA) founder Shamnad Basheer said: “Last year, we had under 100 students only. This year, we’re have more awareness campaigns around this and teams in each state that are visiting school by school to educate and encourage more students to sit for INAT. So we’re expecting at least 500 students to take it this time.”
“As INAT brand gets more prominent and CLAT is popularised much more through these mass school visits, we’re hopeful that the pool of eligible students from which we pick will increase and will enable IDIA to go much, much further in its mission,” he added.
IDIA North-East team leader Diptoshree Basu said that INAT posters had been sent to at least 50 schools in each state, hoping to target 400 mostly government and Kendriya Vidyalaya schools in the country. They would also disseminate pamphlets on law as a career and national law schools, to “inform students about the changing face of a legal career in India”, he said. There were also 15 registration and enquiry telephone numbers for students to call, instead of four last time.
In last April IDIA chose 50 students for free CLAT coaching and training, of whom 14 ultimately joined national law schools, including five visually impaired students; one student ended up at NLSIU Bangalore with an all India rank of 45, another IDIA scholar who is a stone quarry worker’s daughter made it to NLIU Bhopal.
Efforts would be made to help successful IDIA candidates procure scholarships and loans to cover college fees and IDIA can guarantee full fee-waivers at NLSIU and NUJS Kolkata.
For more information please call one of the following numbers to chat with IDIA coordinators:
- Bharat – 09845442956
- Pranusha – 09164197317
- Anukanksha – 09845442924
Comments
I think we should follow the US model and have 3-year postgrad law schools where mature students in their mid-twenties enrol. These stupid schoolkids think law schools are useless, but as they get older they will realise that a law degree is a great thing.
I am sure you are not aware of the changes that CLAT has implemented in the pattern of the paper since 2011. It does not require students to 'learn' legal knowledge and static GK. CLAT now only has legal reasoning (fact and principle based questions) which does not require mugging up of law at all. Neither does it include any static GK - only current affairs is tested. CLAT is oriented now, towards testing of a candidates analytical and reasoning skills rather than his/her memory power.
Gone are those days when a student can mug up material provided by coaching centres and score great marks in CLAT.
I certainly noticed the question paper of the last year ( I was not a CLAT aspirant though ). But, how does that paper will be able to extract the smart students at the outset ? From what I can conclude, it was considerably lengthy paper with and finishing it off was a very hard task. Bringing to your notice, a guy who scored around 127 Rank in CLAT was not aware of the number of UTs in the Country ( Acc. to him, it was 10.) and lots of others. Agreed, they had a very very good English, and most of the students who cleared CLAT with good rank were either having good english or luck. ( Considering those 5 questions Dispute ). It shall not be a English Paper, instead it should be an aptititude paper simply because in Law Schools, we are in need of students with aptitute rather having just good English. May be those days have gone when anyone would have mugged up and cleared the CLAT, but such days should not be created when anyone with only GOOD ENGLSIH ( not aptitude ) will clear the CLAT. CLAT 2011 was no great paper.
CLAT 2011 paper was not great in a lot of ways and ultimately resulted in many students cracking clat just by stroke of luck. In fact, if law school did not use english as a medium of instruction or laws were written in vernacular languages, we could have easily had a CLAT paper based only on reasoning and CLAT takers could attempt it in any of the vernacular languages.
If your grouse is against earning money, then well NGOs like Oxfam, Greenpeace pay very decently indeed :)