Ranking of secondary schools and students in national examinations: the perception of teachers and students

Abstract

The aim of the stu­dy was to in­ves­ti­ga­te the te­achers’ and stu­dents’ per­cep­tion of ran­king scho­ols and stu­dents in na­tio­nal exa­mi­na­tions. A desc­rip­ti­ve sur­vey de­sign was used and se­con­da­ry scho­ols in Ka­kame­ga south di­strict for­med the stu­dy po­pu­la­tion. The sam­ple fra­me con­sis­ted of 75 se­con­da­ry scho­ols stra­ti­fied ac­cor­ding to per­for­man­ce in­to low, ave­ra­ge and top ran­ked ca­te­go­ries. The sam­ple si­ze consis­ted of 36 scho­ols (12 from each per­for­man­ce ca­te­go­ry) se­lec­ted by sim­ple ran­dom sam­pling and 252 res­pon­dents se­lec­ted pur­po­si­ve­ly from the 36 scho­ols. Da­ta col­lec­tion in­stru­ments we­re qu­es­tion­nai­res. Re­lia­bi­li­ty was es­tab­lis­hed by use of test re­test tech­ni­que. Most of the stu­dents and most he­ad te­achers ap­pro­ved of ran­king whi­le most of the te­achers di­sap­pro­ved of ran­king. Des­pi­te this stand on ran­king, both the te­achers and stu­dents felt that ran­king should be im­pro­ved and thus cal­led for a sys­tem of as­sessment that en­com­pas­sed all the as­pects ins­te­ad of fo­cu­sing on aca­de­mic per­for­man­ce on­ly. This would en­su­re that ran­king of scho­ols and stu­dents did not glo­ri­fy aca­de­mic achie­ve­ment at the ex­pen­se of ta­lent and ot­her vir­tu­es.