Obsession with grades has become the tail wagging the dog

I attended Alliance High School at a time the school had been enjoying half a century of ascendency in national examinations.

The media was somewhat unimpressed about this situation and would darkly insinuate that something sinister accounted for the school’s leadership in national examinations.

In those days, the media paid little attention to primary school examination results. As a mark of how low-key primary school results were, we never got to know the number of marks obtained in primary school examination results.

In those days, we were concerned with only the “points” rather than the “marks” obtained.

For primary school examinations, things changed with the switch to the 8-4-4 system. Everything about the new system was a curiosity to the media which took an unusual interest in the first 8-4-4 system primary examination results in 1984.

These were minutely dissected, including parading the boys and girls that had excelled. Ever since, we have come to expect a listing of top primary examination candidates, the top schools, and even districts.

Further, the media is always fashioning new ways of analysing the results and has also been carrying the human-interest stories behind the results.

At Alliance, while there was always a tinge of hostility from the media about our good results, the response by the school community was always dignified and was characterised by humility.

Year-in year out, we received excellent results graciously, never celebrating, and quietly went about the business of our daily work.

It was as though good grades did not matter to us. When, for the first time, Starehe Boys’ Centre and School topped in national examinations in 1985, beating Alliance in the process, the feat was followed by celebrations at Starehe. The media, tired of the dominance by Alliance, egged them on.

The predictability accompanying the release of last year’s examination results has somewhat been upset because of the directive by the Education Ministry that there will no longer be a formal ranking of candidates or schools.

As a result, the shoulder-high routine for top candidates, the singing in school streets around the country, and the media interviews with the young exam stars, has been confused, robbed of the capacity to compare results.

DETRIMENTAL TO ALL

As the country debates the ministry’s directive, a complete understanding of individual results is only possible if there is ability to consider them in the wider context of the performance of other candidates.

The decision to withhold information is therefore detrimental to all candidates, not just those who excelled.

Also, information about broad trends in the examinations, for example disaggregation of results by county, or by gender, is useful for understanding pertinent issues surrounding the examinations, and for informing policy responses.

There is a legal standard governing public information, found in article 35 of the new Constitution, which requires the release of all information held by authorities.

Best practice on access to information requires a voluntary, proactive and full disclosure of information, and that information should not be withheld for speculative fears.

In all fairness, the Minister is grappling with a genuine problem which has come to accompany public education in Kenya.

The pre-occupation with good grades has become the tail wagging the dog in the education system, and is crying for a remedy.

In the ongoing debate, it is surprising how little appreciation there has been about the role of the media.

The media knows that examination stories guarantee national interest because large sections of the population are involved, whether as students, or their families and schools.

There is a temptation towards contrived reporting, just to stay with a story that has a large and guaranteed followership.

Secondly, the manner in which Kenyan media chooses to cover examination stories, targeting individual small children, their families and school communities, often in remote areas, in effect focuses on unbusinesslike people, exploiting a vulnerability that comes with their elation over news about their good grades, and the fact that they are not used to media coverage.

When, in the 1970s and 1980s, the media paid little attention to primary examination results, little mattered when these results were released.

When, with the onset of the 8-4-4 system, the media decided that obtaining good primary grades was news, all that changed, leading to the ugly triumphalism that is now part of the culture of releasing these results.

In particular, the rise of television creates possibilities, and dangers, that did not exist in the way that media covered examination results in the past.

Releasing all the information on examinations is a constitutional obligation, one which the minister cannot avoid, merely because of the bad tastes of the media using that information.

The Alliance of old provided an example of humility in success, something the country can emulate.

There is an Aesop fable about the mango tree, boastful because of its sturdy frame, which taunted the bamboo tree because of its fragility.

However, the mango tree was swept aside by a storm, which the humble bamboo survived.

Parading children for television merely because they excelled in examinations seems exploitative, sets them up for attention they are ill-prepared to cope with, and promotes a culture of vanity around grades.

On the other hand, rather than withhold information, the minister needs to start a national discussion to promote good taste when covering examination news.

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