Teachers oppose ban on school ranking

Teachers and private school owners have opposed the ban on ranking schools and students.

The ban was a “recipe for disaster” and would not solve the problems the education sector faced, they said.

Knut Secretary-General Wilson Sossion on Monday said the Ministry of Education directive was premature as the teaching fraternity was not consulted.

“We want the ministry to go back to the drawing board and engage stakeholders. Someone waking up and issuing a circular without consulting stakeholders is not doing justice to the education system,” Mr Sossion said.

He noted that ranking schools was ingrained in international education practices by global agencies such as Unesco and implementing the ban might compromise education standards.

“Unesco is ranking world governments in terms of education. The current ranking places Kenya at position 111 in terms of access to education and 44 in terms of quality. Why should we shy away from the domestic ranking of our own students and schools?” he asked.

Mr Sossion was speaking during the signing of an agreement between the union and the Jomo Kenyatta University of Technology to provide ICT training to teachers throughout the country.

“We want all teachers to be technologically savvy by 2019. We have therefore formulated a policy document that, if adopted, will ensure the country has enough quality teachers, learning tools and infrastructure,” said Mr Sossion.

LAPTOP PROJECT

He at the same time said the government should reconsider outsourcing the tenders for laptops and instead award the programme to JKUAT which is fully equipped to assemble the computers locally.

“We have also proposed that all teacher training colleges have fully functioning ICT labs. The Teachers Service Commission is also on board as far as these proposals are concerned,” he said.

The university’s deputy vice chancellor for academic affairs, Prof Romanus Odhiambo, said JKUAT was rolling out a new course to help teachers integrate ICT in classrooms.

“While the Jubilee laptop project is commendable, we have noticed that teachers are not well-equipped to digitise curricula content. That is why the university has come up with a master of science degree in ICT integration in education and instructional design,” he said.

Private school owners have also rejected the abolition of ranking schools in national examinations by the ministry.

Yesterday, they said the new order would spell doom as there would be no way of checking on the quality of education offered.

Kenya Private Schools Association (Kepsha) chief executive officer Peter Ndoro told the Nation by telephone: “If the government must ban ranking of schools in the national examinations then it must be prepared to employ more standard quality assurance officers as the alternative.”

NOT BE RANKED

A circular issued last week by Education Principal Secretary Bellio Kipsang to county and district education officials said schools would not be ranked in national exams.

But Mr Ndoro said ranking had contributed immensely as a schools performance measure.

He said it was incumbent upon the government to implement what worked in favour of education and not individual interests. His sentiments were echoed by private school teachers in Kisii, who said the ban on ranking in national exams was wrong and untimely.

The teachers, who met at Imperial Primary School to discuss their strategic plan for improving the performance of schools in 2015, said proper consultation was not done.

They accused the government of practising top-down dictatorship. They said orders came from above without the views from the grassroots.

Reports by Ngare Kariuki, Everline Okewo and Brian Moseti