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{
    "id": 516736,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/516736/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 242,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ochieng",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2955,
        "legal_name": "David Ouma Ochieng'",
        "slug": "david-ouma-ochieng"
    },
    "content": "That is grading and not ranking. That is why you are going to get ten people getting the same grade. This is very important so that we know what we are talking about. There is unnecessary and unhealthy competition in our schools because of ranking. People have stopped teaching and doing what they are supposed to do. We are no longer using what we call pedagogy. We are not using good teaching methods because what we want, at the end of the day, is results and our faces to be seen on television. You have seen and heard how teachers in some schools tell their students to register for national exams in other schools. In Class Seven, they were 100 pupils but in Class Eight, they reduce to 50 pupils because some have been told they cannot register there since the school wants better results. In high schools, you see schools telling some students that they will be registered in other schools because they do not want to lower their mean grades. We cannot allow that. We want equal access to education for all our children so that ranking is not used as a tool to bar our children from accessing opportunities in schools. It is very important to note that ranking also works on the morale of the students and teachers so that we vilify those who do not get good results. We glorify those who get good results. We are one country. We cannot continue doing this because it affects part of the country. It makes some of our students to lose hope in life and to think that exams are the only things that you need to pass for you to be able to live in this country. This has also seen our schools using unethical methods. You have heard - and we have gotten reports from the Ministry of Education, Research and Technology and our committees here - of some schools using very unethical methods to make their students to pass exams. You have heard of schools spending money to buy exams and requiring their studentsto pay more school fees to enable tuition to happen. If we continue ranking, we will be taking our schools down the drain rather than making our children learn skills. I want to urge this House to look at this Motion for what it is that, if we are going to allocate resources to schools, it should be done equitably and not based on the results. This is to ensure that access to school is equal to every Kenyan regardless of the results, where the school is based, who the principal is and whose children go there. With those very many remarks, I heartily oppose. Thank you."
}