Why Abolishing School Rankings is the best decision the Government made to save our education system: Firstly, it is very important to understand why ranking of schools is the worst enemy to the credibility and success of our education system and is terribly detrimental to the main stake-holder - the student/pupil who are our children. So to who is school ranking important and why? The main beneficiary of school rankings is the private school owner, because by ranking and announcing best performing schools is the best advertisement a school can get - for free! What happens is that parents run to try to secure places in top schools for their children thereby bringing huge revenue to the private owner...which is good for business, right? At whose expense? What harm does this practice bring us? Terrible harm, I tell you. First of all, the top schools will do ANYTHING to remain at the top because thats how they keep their hefty income flowing. Part of the anything includes: sacrificing the very pupils they are supposed to be taking care of without care, cheating and corruption. Look at this: 1700 pupils have had their 2014 KCPE results cancelled due to cheating. Who aids or facilitates cheating? The school management through their corrupt teachers who are paid to do it and are promised promotions and better pay if the school retains an impressive position or improves. When the teacher is leaking examination results to the kid, its not because he/she cares at all about the kid, but it is out of his selfish interests alone! The teacher will steal, kill and destroy to achieve! They spoon-feed kids cant let them display their actual potential. Parents will be forced to buy books that sometimes are not even in line with the syllabus and children will be forced to stay in class up to 18 hours every day with loads and loads of homework. While this is very destructive to the development of the baby, the teacher doesnt care so long as he hits his target for a better reward. EFFECTS If the kid passes undetected: The way this game is played is such that only the chosen kids participate. The criteria for picking the participants is varied and the participants may or may not know they have been picked. For those who have been picked to participate, there only two things that can happen: Pass or Get Caught. If the kids get high grades the school is high praised with huge processions and newspaper captions to the point of overshadowing the brilliant pupil, school fees is multiplied, the income is huge and the teacher (sometimes) gets rewarded for it. Unfortunately there are many teachers who live a grumbling life for the sweet promises that never happened! That also means that the schools that never cheated lose their credibility and revenue for low performance. This is part of the reason why our Public Schools can not compete in our education system since theyll always adhere to the rule of law and professional practice, meaning children will only perform to their actual potential and since only the highest marks are admitted in good secondary schools, parents will keep running to the private schools for them. Unfortunately too, these kids are known to be the poorest performers when they graduate to high schools! If the kid is caught: Now this is where things turn really ugly. In the event the participating child is caught, the evil school management and the perpetrator who is the teacher is never punished and if the school is punished theyll fight tooth and nail to exonerate themselves and throw the blame to the child. Secondly, the child loses the worth of his/her hard work for a whole eight years! Thirdly, the parent loses the value of the hefty fee he/she paid for the baby. The real losers in this game are actually THE CHILD AND THE PARENT! The only thing the school can lose is its income after using the child and the parent pawns in their dirty game. Conclusion: The government should ensure the new system is fully implemented and if there is need for competitiveness of schools as is being advanced by some quarters, they should be told that their oppressive style is completely unacceptable. And thats Elijah Jumbos take.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 15:29:57 +0000
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