Is the ranking of schools in KCSE fair?
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
09 March 2014
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” It is
not clear who came up with that gem, but I remembered it during the week
as I listened to various people analysing the results of the Kenya
Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). The intriguing question was:
how come that the counties with many schools in the top ten list
(Kiambu,
Only Kisumu (at number 7) made it in the top ten of counties. Was this a case of political fudging of the figures to appease the people in marginalised regions?
Without dwelling into much detail, what this means is that, the counties with schools at the top of the list have a few excellent institutions and very many poorly performing ones. The weight of poor performers pulled down the county’s average score.
On the flip-side, the counties that lead the county ranking roll have a few schools and each performed moderately well, but not good enough to get into the top ten individually.
With that out of the way, there are two other issues that I have with the ranking of schools. First, when the top ten list is being read out, it is not good to start with the number one school. This kills the suspense. It is better to read the list in reverse order. The tension would be nerve-racking as principals wonder which will be mentioned next!
Secondly, this age-old question still remains: do the schools at the top get there because they teach very well or because they get the best students? Imagine giving 100 pupils an exam and putting the top 20 in one class and the bottom 20 in another.
Now teach them for four years using similar teachers and set them another exam. Which class do you think will do better? The one with the top 20 pupils, of course. Isn’t this the same thing that we are seeing with the ranking of secondary schools?
We need to think of a new method of ranking schools, the performance index alone is not enough. The Kenya National Examinations Council should come up with method of comparing schools in terms of teaching performance.
A long time ago (in the 1990s, I think), Mr. Daniel Gachukia, the founder and Chairman of the Riara Group of Schools proposed a ranking method that could capture this information. He compared the entry marks of pupils at form one (KCPE) to their exit scores at form four (KCSE).
He found that on average, pupils in National Schools scored lower KCSE marks than KCPE while those in Provincial and District schools had high KCSE than KCPE results.
He concluded that district schools are doing a better job than the National and Provincial ones even though they hardly ever made it into the top 100 list. I think Mr. Gachukia’s idea is worth serious consideration.
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