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{
    "id": 516734,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/516734/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 240,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ochieng",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2955,
        "legal_name": "David Ouma Ochieng'",
        "slug": "david-ouma-ochieng"
    },
    "content": "mundane. I am also happy that the so-called ‘ranking’ is not anchored in any law or policy. Therefore, the idea that there was no consultation in doing away with ranking of schools is legally unfounded. Which law provides for ranking of schools? Which public policy says that schools will be ranked based on examination results? There is no such law or policy and, therefore, nobody has done anything wrong. In my opinion, vilifying the Ministry or the Minister for abolishing ranking of schools is going too far. We need to look at the real issues, which I want to talk about. First, for a long time, this country has been deeply concerned about the results than the process. We are so concerned about the “A”s and the “B”s; about which school was number one but we should be more concerned about the process and not the end. In education you cannot say that the end justifies the means. In education, we want an all- rounded student. We want our children to leave school when they have learnt everything that they ought to learn and not just exams. We have reduced our children into cramming machines. I have a child who is in Class Two and he leaves home with a bag full of books on his back. I remember when I was in Class Two; I used to carry three books to school. We are making our children to be like machines. They cannot learn and that is why when they leave school, they are unable to fit in the job market. That is because they have not been “tooled” enough. They have not been given enough information that will make them survive in the job market. For a long time - and I say this tongue in cheek - there is a saying out there that it is easier to get a Class Eight dropout to change a bulb for you than to get a graduate in electrical engineering to do it. That is because we are focusing on examinations. We are not focusing on technical, practicals or what our children should learn. I will say this one and substantiate if necessary, we have let our schools be concerned more about dealing with the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) here. This is about: How will my grades be? Who will get a mean grade of 10.4?” Instead of the teachers focusing on teaching, they are focusing on getting headlines. That cannot be allowed to continue. What hon. Wamalwa is proposing is going to enable this to continue and make our children zombies instead of making our children people who have learnt and who can get survival skills after school. We cannot rely on “mean scores” as the barometer for telling us how well our children are. It is simplistic to imagine that children who get “A”s are very sharp and, therefore, are better than those who get C+ (plus) and D+ (plus). When exams are being done, somebody could be sick or bereaved. Circumstances are very different. You would know because you live in this country that there are schools that have only four classrooms and yet, they are high schools. They do not have a laboratory but children from those schools also get “A”s and others get “D”s."
}