Schools have a reason to celebrate after MPs voted for the reintroduction of ranking schools’ performance in national examinations.
MPs approved an amendment to the law lifting the ban on listing of schools and candidates by order of performance. If the Bill gets the president’s assent, the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations results will rank the performers from the best to the worst performing.
This time though, the Kenya National Examination (Amendment) Bill, 2016 says that performance of schools in activities outside the classroom shall be measured and ranked.
The KNEC Bill sponsored by Kiminini MP Chris Wamalwa states: “The Cabinet Secretary shall, in every academic year, rank institutions of basic education that offer primary or secondary education based on academic performance in national examinations and performance in co-curricular activities.”
Ranking schools was banned three years ago by former Education CS Jacob Kaimenyi but under the new changes, the CS will publish a list of well-performing schools after receiving data from the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) and County Directors of Education.
Schools will be placed in distinct categories under the new rules to create fairness according to the MPs.
National, provincial and district schools will be listed separately.
However, the new development has met different reactions with some opposing it and terming the Bill retrogressive.
“MPs are just pretending because ranking will not add value no matter indicators used. Are there methods to know how outside class activities can be measured?” Janet Muthoni, EYC national co-ordinator, posed to The Standard.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary General Wilson Sossion welcomed the passage of the Bill saying this has been the position of Knut.
“The ranking tool should be discussed, improved and implemented through consultation,” he told the paper.