Dr. Vandana Singh, Assistant Professor of Law, USLLS, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi, India holds degree of B.Sc, LL.B, LL.M and Doctoral degree from the University of Delhi, Delhi India, and is working as an assistant professor of Law at the USLLS, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi, India. Her areas of specialization are intellectual Property Rights, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Private International Law and Consumer Law. She has co-authored the book ‘Case Laws on Medical Negligence: Consumer Case Laws’, Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India, in association with IIPA. Her research papers have been published in leading international journals. She has co-authored three monographs on private international law, insurance law and economic law, for the International Encyclopedia of Laws, published by Wolters Kluwer, Law and Business, Netherland. She has also contributed a chapter in the Toshiyuki Kono (ed.), Intellectual Property and Private International Law: Comparative Perspectives (Hart Publication, Oxford 2012) and a chapter in the Private International Law: South Asian States’ Practice (Springer, 2016). In USLLS, she is convener of Legal Aid Centre and actively involved in community outreach programme, legal awareness camp, mass legal literacy event for school children etc. Her recent publication is an authored book Law of Geographical Indications in India: Rising Above Horizon, published by Eastern Law House (2017).
Educational Reforms for Effective Legal Teaching in India
Abstract:
Teaching is the only profession that makes all the other professions possible in the world. It is also the quality of teaching and pedagogy followed in institutions imparting higher professional education that determines the quality of professionals that students would go on to become once their embark on their careers. The legal profession is no exception to this. Faculty at law schools have a major role in the development of the skillset that is required for a student to build a successful career in law especially if it is in academics itself. The academic profile and professional achievements of academicians teaching at law schools can be potentially instrumental in their students’ decision to subsequently pursue a career in academics for they are the role models the students try to emulate. Remuneration and perceived job satisfaction are also important factors that persuade or deter law students from joining the academia on a full time basis.
The University Grants Commission of India vide its 2018 Regulations made the award of a Ph.D. Degree mandatory for recruitment to the post of assistant professors in all Universities across India, thereby raising the bar for entry into the academia for all disciplines including law. Earlier in 2021 in a watershed moment for Indian legal education, the Bar Council of India set up India’s first law teacher training institute – the Indian Institute of Law for the benefit of law teachers and practising advocates. The present paper titled “Educational Reforms for Effective Legal Teaching in India” proposes to analyse the current norms governing the legal academia in India to ascertain if they are able to produce the kind of academicians that can put Indian legal education at par with the some of the finest in the world. Since the standard of legal education imparted also determines the quality of teachers that are produced in the future, the paper also proposes to study in depth the former’s impact on the latter.