BPP appeals for Bar students to defer two weeks into course

BPP Law School has been forced to appeal for volunteers to leave its Bar Vocational Course (BVC) and take up places next year.

The move comes at the request of the Bar Standards Board (BSB), which gives BVC course providers validated numbers of students which they are not permitted to exceed.

The email asking for volunteers to leave and re-enrol in September 2010 was sent on 17 September - 10 days after BPP's BVC started on 7 September.

As an incentive to leave the course, BPP has offered a 15% reduction in fees on next year's course, which amounts to a discount of over £2,000 on the £14,700 course fees.

BPP chief executive Peter Crisp commented: "Those who would consider deferring have been invited to contact the director of BVC programmes to discuss. BPP has emphasised that any decision to defer needs to be carefully thought through."

In a statement, the BSB said: ""The BSB is committed to ensuring the quality and standard of the BVC. We are currently in dialogue with BPP about the number of students recruited on their courses this year."

The news, which was initially reported on RollonFriday, follows growing concerns about the discrepancy between numbers of students taking the BVC and the number of pupillages available.

A total of 1,749 students enrolled on the BVC in 2008-09, battling it out for around 550 pupillages available.

The issue was looked at last year by the BVC working party chaired by Derek Wood QC of Falcon Chambers, which had intended to introduce an aptitude test the to the new, revamped BVC (which will be known as the Bar Professional Training Course) until concerns about its introduction were raised by the Office of Fair Trading earlier this year.

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