King’s law students came into heated confrontation with the Head of the Law School, complaining of being treated as guinea pigs for a new teaching system that sees contact time with teaching staff reduced.

King’s students starting or returning to law courses this term discovered that seminar time, which previously stood at two hours per week, had been reduced to a one-hour session every fortnight.

“I don’t want to be a guinea pig, I’m graduating this year”, one student told Law School Head Timothy Macklem at a meeting for law students organised to discuss the new system.

Macklem defended the new system by claiming that smaller seminar groups mean students can develop analytical skills, which he said employers value more than knowledge of material.

“The question is whether there is enough time for adequate discussion”, he said, prompting students to reply in concert “No!”

Many students complain that, while they chose King’s because of the extensive seminar system, the current set-up, which was not detailed in the course handbook for the year, is not what they applied for.

Last year the King’s Law School was ranked highest for student satisfaction of any Russell Group law department in the National Student Survey.

“King’s had the highest student satisfaction rating of any Russell Group university. This begs the question of why the change was made”, students wrote in a submission to the Law School.

Some students also claimed that members of staff told them that the college administration had threatened to axe the undergraduate law degree, which makes a loss, if the Law School did not cut costs. London Student was unable to obtain independent confirmation of this accusation from staff.

Some suspect the new system of being a cost cutting measure.

Both Timothy Macklem and the King’s press office categorically denied that the college had threatened to cut the law degree, Macklem claiming that the new system costs as much if not more than the old set-up.