The Ghana School of Law, as part of its expansion plans, has been gifted a significant portion of land measuring 1.12 acres by the Overlord of the Asante Kingdom, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.
The development comes on the back of the country’s foremost and sole professional legal education body trying to expand its presence across the country to bring the services it renders to the doorsteps of the general public.
The 1.12-acre land is located in Adum, and is located in the Ministries enclave to enable the building of a permanent legal education edifice for the School of Law in the process of expanding legal education in the country.
Plans to allocate the land in question to the Ghana School of Law started in 2003, as the institution only has one permanent facility located in Accra, which does not help its efficient administrative functions.
The planned construction of the new facility in Kumasi will serve as its second campus.
The initiative builds upon the foundation laid in 2010 when, through the efforts of Asantehene, the Kumasi campus of the Ghana School of Law was established, which is currently located at the campus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
Upon completion, the facility would boast amenities like: lecture halls, staff offices, hostel accommodation, banking facility, law firms, legal regalia for lawyers, a clinic, amongst others.
In a speech delivered on his behalf by the Paramount Chief of the Sampa Traditional Area, Nana Samgba Gyafla II, at the official handing over of the site on Monday [July 28, 2025], Otumfuo Osei Tutu II said legal education is deeply cherished in the Ashanti Region.
The acting Chief Justice, Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, said for decades, the Kumasi campus has served as a branch of the Ghana School of Law at the KNUST and stated that the handing over of the land would culminate in the building of a modern campus to enhance legal education.
He said, “This campus will provide the next generation of lawyers with greater opportunities for practical, while keeping them close to the courts where justice is administered,” and added that it is a milestone not only for Kumasi but for Ghana as a whole.
He added that the campus would ensure that professional legal education remains accessible and relevant across the country and stated that the facility would not only be brick and mortar but would represent collective aspirations for a Ghana governed by the rule of law.
The Director of the School of Law, Barima Yaw Kodie Oppong, intimated that in the days past, students who had completed their LLB studies in places such as KNUST still had to relocate to Accra to enrol in the professional law course due to a lack of options.
Indeed, he said professional legal training became so much attached to Makola that it became an abomination for anyone to claim to have become a lawyer without having gone through the Ghana School of Law at Makola.
To address the worrying trend, the Management and government had to take steps to open the Kumasi campus in 2010 at KNUST, with that campus now in its 15th year of operations.
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Story by Sika Togoh|univers.ug.edu.gh
