School ranking should go beyond marks

Following the announcement of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) results by Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi, there have been discussions about scrapping of the school ranking system.

Students, parents, teachers and other interest groups should greatly appreciate the outpouring of public and private support either in support of or against the ranking tradition.

I think this dialogue should be encouraged.

In this article, I don’t want to talk any more about the merits and demerits of ranking schools, for it’s a truism that ranking is a way of life in business and industry, education, in the workplace and life in general.

I would like to focus on moving beyond the average score as a measure of academic performance of our schools and instead explore on how we can improve the ranking metrics.

With deep gratitude and respect to all who have contributed to this important debate, including my professor, Dr Kilemi Mwiria and friend Dr Iraki, we should remember Nelson Mandela's words that education is the most powerful weapon that we can use to change the world.

In Kenya today, there is an urgent need to re-affirm the enduring value of education as a powerful foundation for life, careers, citizenship and human development.

It is not an exaggeration to argue that individuals, families, and the entire Kenyan society indeed need quality education.

It is a truism that education enables us to approach problems through multiple ways of learning and knowing.

It helps us to think deeply, critically, and creatively.

It also helps us by giving us the ability to listen openly and reflectively and engage in dialogue.

But there is more. Education is the window through which we get to learn from others and to appreciate differences, views and perspectives among people who think and look different from us.

While we engage in the dialogue pertaining to the ranking of schools, we should be willing to surrender our own mental models, listen and think deeply, critically and creatively to what is being said about the ranking of the schools based on one single measure, which is the average score.

I would therefore like to challenge Ministry of Education professionals to develop additional metrics to measure the performance of schools, universities and the ministry itself.

 

Performance metrics should focus on quality of education and measuring of student engagement and learning. When students move from one grade of education to the next, we should be able to determine the gain in learning or the value added.

This is the true measure of the quality of education.

Since Kenya as a country belongs to the global society, which is technologically interconnected and interdependent, we should seek to understand how other countries measure their own education systems and put in place quality assurance measures used to measure learning in our schools.

While we do not have to copy directly what others are doing, we should adapt education quality measurement practices applicable to the Kenyan situation.

In the state of Texas, in the United States where I live and work, questions pertaining to the ranking of schools are equally being debated and innovative improvements are always being sought and implemented.

The whole idea is to engage learners and unleash their creativity and innovation through learning.

Texas Education Agency (TEA), an equivalent of the ministry of education in the state, is responsible for assessing public school students on what they have learned and determining district and school accountability ratings.

Instead of relying on one single measure -the mean score of the schools -TEA provides an array of school performance reports based on the results of student testing.

Other assessments include school report cards, academic performance report for each student, enrolment and accountability reports.

Students are also judged based on attendance rates, annual drop-out rates, longitudinal rates, student-teacher ratio, class size, school size, financial accountability, accreditation status and monitoring and evaluation reports.

Thus issues pertaining to the ranking of schools require the involvement of educational professionals and experts.

In the Kenyan case, we need to move beyond the mean score in KCPE or the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations as the only measure to rank the performance of our schools.

Education experts should guide the general public by developing credible ranking metrics.