Wilfred’s education has been supported by OSLC since he was in secondary school in 2015. He has now graduated from Tumaini University Makumira, and has completed his study at the Law School of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam. Wilfred has recently met with Pastor Yotham Baha and Kristin Westermann, directors of Godparents for Tanzania. Here is how Kristin describes Wilfred’s present academic status:
The Law School is essentially the fourth year of legal training for those who want to be admitted to the Tanganyika Law Society (the Bar association for mainland Tanzania). The three-year Bachelor of Law degree that Wilfred completed last year was mostly theory, with a limited amount of field work. By contrast, the first six months of training at the Law School is focused on applied law. And the next four months will consist of two different field placements — one placement in the courts and one with a law firm or NGO.
The classroom portion (from January up to this moment) has been challenging. Wilfred is in class Monday through Friday for eight hours every day. In addition to lectures by experts in various aspects of law, Wilfred and his 300+ classmates are divided into groups of 25 to perform a mock trial every two weeks. The mock trials are critiqued by Law School lecturers down to the finest detail. Exams are given regularly, and they are graded without mercy. It sounds brutal, to be perfectly honest.
Wilfred has survived and is now in the final exams for this portion of the training. These exams began Monday and go through July 11. Then he will get a few days off before his first two-month field placement. Wilfred has not been assigned a field placement; that will happened when exams are over.
Field work reports will be due in December, and Wilfred will then sit for the Bar exam. The results of the exam will be released in February. If Wilfred fails it the first time, he can retake it once for free.
This is a super high pressure experience, but Wilfred seems to be keeping his head above water. We told him just to keep working hard and giving maximum effort without focusing too much on the final result. He has enough pressure on him already without worrying that we will be disappointed in him.
Wilfred spent a long time writing the attached letter. As you will see, he has so much gratitude to express.
We at OSLC also give thanks for the opportunity to help Wilfred.
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