Ken Robinson says that schools have killed creativity. From the recent Kenya Union of Teachers’ (KNUT) strike it was evident that we are lacking in creativity. Three weeks of strike threatened the effectiveness of the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) like never before. Why is KNEC linked to KNUT?
In 2010 GCSE candidates took their exam towards the end June and the results were out by August. More than 700,000 students worldwide did mathematics and English while other subjects averaged more than 350,000 candidates. At the same time about 360,000 sat for the KCSE in the same year between October and November but the results came out at the end of February. In other words marking our exams took twice as much as it took the Pearson’s Group (a private entity) to mark GCSE.
GCSE exams are marked by retired teachers as well as other qualified people. It is a contract for which you are paid 800 pounds for the three to four weeks exercise. They heavily use IT to process the exams and some papers are marked by computers.
The company offers a variety of qualifications, including A Levels (GCEs), Edexel (which is one of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’s five main examination boards and the BTEC suit of examination qualifications. It also offers work-based learning qualifications – including BTEC Apprenticeships through Pearson Work Based Learning, awarding over 1.5 million certificates to students around the world every year.
Since we benchmark on everything, is it not time we started to benchmark on our education?
Well said sir! I believe all the evils in Kenyan society today is due to limited appreciation of change.
ReplyDeleteWe must move away from offering exams once a year to two or three times a year. This
Deletewill enable fast learners to finish, move on and leave space for more learners.
Further, examinations should never be a government core activity. This is why we
have too many people with certificates but cannot help themselves.
Learning is supposed to be pleasurable such that we can identify talent and nurture it. We have for example doctors without passion or ability but we continue to admit students to medical schools based on grades.
We should never attempt to control education in any way. As Robinson says, children are not goods with sale by date. Learning is a process. Whether it takes you 12 years or 15 years to finish high school, it does not matter. What matters is whether you like what you are doing.
Since we have IT availability throughout the country, we should start continuous
assessment such that the final exam will constitute only 40%. This effectively will
emasculate thousands of young girls who fall through the cracks simply because they
are able to afford sanitary towels and stay in school.
Ndemo.