Monday, January 2, 2012

This ranking has harmfully reduced education to a contest



  SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTEMAILRATING
Education minister Prof. Sam Ongeri. PHOTO/ FILE | NATION 
By JOHN KAGECHE lendmeyourears@consultant.com
Posted  Sunday, January 1  2012 at  19:23
IN SUMMARY
  • While celebrating the results of national examinations is okay, the weight we attach to it together with the ranking of students and schools could be doing more harm than good to our education system
It happened again last Wednesday. The drums rolled and the Minister for Education unveiled the names of the new “celebrities”.
The media picked the cue and stories about the top performing students, schools, and counties in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations were aired on TV and splashed on the front pages of the newspapers.
Every end of year, the big closing piece of news is that of the education minister announcing the results of KCPE examinations and revealing who led, by what marks, and from which school.
Come February, the scenario will be repeated with the release of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations results.
Does this culture of ranking students and schools serve any credible purpose?
Share This Story
38Share 
Exam performance shouldn’t be a popularity contest, but that seems to be what it has been made in this country. There is a high price to the habit.
When a top student countrywide, especially from a hitherto unknown school, is all over the headlines, three things happen: It puts unhealthy pressure on the young student; a brand awareness of the school is created; and the feeling of “failure” arises among the multitudes who did not “excel”.
After basking in the glory of success and the student proceeds to secondary school, all eyes will be on him or her.
The pressure, both social and academic, will be unbearable, with teachers, friends and relatives constantly reminding the young student that they must perform even better in Form Four.
The practice of ranking and pompously celebrating students, schools and counties on national platforms risks shifting the understanding of the purpose of education.
More and more, it is ceasing from being an act of learning skills and acquiring useful knowledge, and evolving into a popularity contest and a vicious fight for survival.
We are telling young minds that education is a jungle out there; that it is about survival for the fittest.
“Competition is stiff,” we seem to say, and so the child must log in extra hours and days of tuition if they are to survive and then be celebrated.
As a school, you must feature prominently in the annual academic “Oscars” if you are to endure. And so you get “winning” schools marketing themselves as “Best school in KCPE 20xx” or “Produced the best KCPE candidate in 20xx”.
The innocent child, through his or her fearful parents, then become a product to be competed for by the education industry players.
As for the so-called “failing” multitude, a USAID report gives a verdict that policy makers should pay attention to.
It states in part: “(Kenyan) youth are vulnerable (to social ills) for multiple and complex reasons... On one hand, there is an education system that is designed to be highly individualistic and competitive, in which “paper” examinations determine one’s life opportunities, and the majority “fail” before attaining qualifications that are needed for formal sector employment.”
There is this teacher of 34 years with an interesting revelation. She says she has repeatedly observed that her students who held mid to lower positions in class, comparatively excelled more in life than those in the uppermost strata. In fact, she goes on to state that those in the top five, for some reason, do not always fare so well later in life.
This is not to suggest that those who excel in national examinations will not succeed in life — many of them do — but this observation is given to question the validity of the yardstick by which we gauge the success of our education system.
Is it enough to use a three-day exam to assess eight years of study and go about ranking of schools and students and make noise about it?
The writer is a personal development trainer with special interest in the youthThe intention here is not to rubbish or dampen the moment for brilliant children and their parents. Their achievement is to be celebrated. My concern is with how the celebration is conducted and the weight given to it.

No comments:

Post a Comment