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{
    "id": 662397,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/662397/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 176,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Melly",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 12849,
        "legal_name": "Julius Kipbiwot Melly",
        "slug": "julius-kipbiwot-melly"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I rise to support this Bill. Ranking, as a form of making decisions in our society, has a long history. If you look at the individuals who came up with the idea of ranking, like the Pearson’s rank order, he envisaged that in every society and class, individuals are supposed to be ranked so as to know if the teaching learning process has adequately been attained. I thank the Hon. Member for coming up with this Bill because in the education sector, a teacher is measured by the output or what the learner has achieved. When a teacher is preparing his or her plan of work, there are certain objectives he is supposed to attain. Those particular objectives shall be measured in a rank order. The rank order that we have here is going to be shown in the number of grades, marks and scores that, that particular student has attained. The cumulative marks that a child has attained will be given in a form of Continuous Assessment Tests (CATs), end term exams, end year exams or end of course exams. Previously, all students and schools have been competing because those particular marks have been given publicly in form of ranking of schools based on performance of the teachers per subject, based on overall school output and that is why you realise that certain schools have been ranked as number one or last based on the output. One thing that I want to agree with the Hon. Member who has brought this Bill is that the kind of ranking we are advocating for in this Bill is a comprehensive kind of rank where schools and institutions and students are going to be ranked comprehensively based on the facilities, levels of school, extra curriculum activities, the management of the school and all that encompasses a school system. In the earlier system, schools were ranked based on merit alone - that is what the students had attained in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry or Biology. However, we are now talking about a comprehensive ranking tool. How has the school performed in terms of psycho-social development of the child? How has the school performed in terms of the physical development of the child in terms of athletics and other sports? I would like to commend the current Cabinet Secretary (CS) because he is not against the ranking system. Once we entrench this in the system, it will not give education officers the whims to cancel or to stop ranking at will. We would want to entrench it so that schools and even institutions can compete fairly and favourably. At times, some scholars have believed that ranking demotivates. It will only demotivate if it is used wrongly. As educationists, this is not going to cause any harm. If we want to find out how a curriculum implementation has been successful in a school, you will never have good results without ranking. You must rank the way teachers have used material resources availed to them, how they have attended their lessons and how their school system and the overall school climate performed in order to achieve that particular curriculum implementation. I would like to support, but the ranking of schools in examinations should be brought back. If we fail to rank, then teaching as profession will not achieve what we want it to achieve. Institutions tend to believe that you can still attain what you want without ranking. But I would like to ask: If you want a particular objective to be achieved, the performance of an institution has to be measured to establish whether it has done very well or it has achieved the least. That is ranking. I would like to support by saying that this Bill is at the right place and at the right time. I would also like to ask the Ministry of Education officials to implement it once it is assented to."
}