Reintroduce ranking in national exams, but make system better for all

The Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (Kpsea) results were released recently without much fanfare.

Some parents were not even aware the results were out. And when those of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) came out last week, the fanfare was muted as well, with the only notable explanation of how to access the results, through the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) portal.  

It seems the only fanfare remaining in Kenya is elections and politically oriented celebrations, which I feel have lately become a vexation to our spirits. 

The results highlighted gender and grade distribution. There is less focus on individual performance or school means. That has not stopped schools from publicising their means through social media. 

Curiously, schools had to get students’ grades one by one. Why can’t they download the results for the whole school at once? 

Schools deployed groups of teachers to download the results, which is not a very good use of teacher’s time in the age of spreadsheets, ERPs and the Internet.  

Why was there no ranking? It was claimed that ranking led to cheating, yet the latest results show some students could have cheated.

Popular rumours also suggest cheating is not over, it could have become more sophisticated or more coordinated.  

Ranking has an economic benefit; it makes parents differentiate between good and bad schools. This includes private schools that have resorted to publishing their exam results in the media.

Rarely discussed is that the end of ranking slowly punctured the once vibrant private education sector. International schools seem to have escaped. 

We seem to have focused too much on the negative part of ranking. Ranking made schools more accountable to the key stakeholders. Others suggest ranking causes stress and riots - a good fallacy. 

My suggestion is that we should introduce a modified ranking that takes care of student’s intellectual capability.

For instance, to derive the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) or Kpsea mean out of 12 points, 350/500 becomes 8.4. You could call that Y.

Then get the school mean at KCSE out of 12, and call that Z. The schools that have the highest percentage change in Z-Y are ranked highest.

That captures the value addition and standardises ranking among all the schools, from county to national schools.

Could we moderate this ranking with extracurricular activities like music, drama, voluntarism, and games to get a weighted rank? And why did more students score E than A? Why is the distribution not normal? 

Why do we fear competition, yet we compete for jobs, for wives, and university places and many other things?

Ranking would also force schools to keep improving. Some suggest it promotes elitism, yet we have elitism in churches. Even communism had its elites. Why not manage elitism, so that we can aspire to become part of that of that elite but through meritocracy?

Curiously, we want our students to study in highly ranked universities, both locally and abroad, but not compete at lower levels. Should our students compete with local or global peers?

We should admit the problem is not ranking, but our ethics and values. Who helps the students cheat?  

A good ranking system would identify the student’s intellectual limit. We can then channel them to appropriate careers.

Without competition, some “A” students would remain “B” students and further down. We may never know the students’ real potential. 

In Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), we have bands that exceed expectations to below expectations. We may not rank, but the same question remains: what next? Why we are afraid of bringing out individual differences?  

We are different in height, weight, complexion and other characteristics. Why would intellectual differences be an issue? 

The problem seems to be what to do with these differences beyond celebrations. We have students on the lower end of the bell curve - in the middle and at the top.  

We have been unfair to the highly intelligent students, we don’t offer them an enriched curriculum. In the US, they take courses at the university.

With universities distributed all over the country, we can try that. The students not so intellectually endowed are penalised with low pay, yet they do very essential jobs.

Talk to Kenyans working abroad, their jobs may not be the fanciest, but the pay is good and commensurate with risks and difficulty. Will the slowing population growth lead to better pay for this group as the pool of workers reduces?

One interesting reform in the examination is availing a second chance, with a mid-year exam in July. Will students choose which exam to take, mid-year or end-year? Will the new exam interfere with the school calendar, and will the second chance become a dustbin of excuses or unpreparedness?

We need to go a step further and liberalise the examination sector. End KNEC monopoly. Our students should have choices.

Kenya’s upper and middle classes have choices. They can choose different education systems for their children, away from 8-4-4 or CBC.

The vast majority have no choices. Why can’t we get KNEC a competitor?  The resulting competition would lead to less leakage and better exams. Do US universities accept both SAT or ACT - college admissions tests designed for high school students, which assess their readiness for college?

We hope the end of fanfare in exam results will result in more balanced students, academically, socially and emotionally.

It should not dampen the dynamism of the much-respected Kenyan education system. Will transition to senior high school and university revive ranking and fanfare? Let us wait and see.