Following the recent release of the outstanding primary and secondary schools, the ministry of education has explained the criteria of selecting the schools.
In an interview with The observer last week, the principal inspector at the directorate of Education Standards (DES), Frances Atima, said the list was generated from research done in partnership with UK-based Ark International.
In 2015, the ministry sampled over 1,000 pupils in 300 primary schools from which, only 134 schools emerged best. At secondary level, where 100 schools were selected, Atima said they looked at the school’s entry cutoff points if they corresponded with the students’ final results at O-level.
“For example, if a school admitted only students with aggregate 18 at primary seven, we expected the average result of the student at S4 to be 40. But if the student got 45, then we concluded that something was done for this student to maintain their result,” Atima said, adding that the same criteria was applied to schools that admitted students with 4s or 5s and above.
For the best primary school, Atima said only government schools were awarded to motivate the head teachers and teachers running the schools.
“These schools have a lot of quality challenges and recognizing the operators will inspire other schools to perform better,” she said.
At every education sector review, government has consistently been recognizing outstanding primary schools but this year, they decided to do the same for both private and government secondary schools.
For the future, Atima said they will also award the best teacher training institutions, business technical and vocational Institutions and universities.
“We are moving systematically because the issue of recognition is very sensitive,” she said. “You must come up with a criterion that will not be widely-criticised but understood by education stakeholders.”
IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS
Of late, DES has been monitoring learning achievements with the help of district local governments. Atima said students are sampled with tests that are marked at the district level in order to check their expected achievement over a given period of time.
However, she said, in-depth analysis of students is still lacking due to inadequate funds to carryout out inspections in schools.
“When an inspector goes to a school, they will only pick out a few issues to discuss with teachers shortly without concentrating on the learners’ performance,” she said.
She added that the new methodology of recognizing value addition to a learner, which has been adopted internationally, will enable them monitor students’ performance.
Out of the 100 best secondary schools, the renowned ‘giant’ schools at Uneb were not recognised and a few are private. This, Atima explained that, what the public perceives as the most performing schools have concentrated on improving grades instead of adding value to their student’s performance.
“These big schools are now dancing to what the community wants them to be. They concentrate on getting the 4s, 5s, 8 in 8 and 20 points at A-level,” Atima said. “Such school does not qualify to be the best school according to our new criterion.”
She added that proprietors of most private schools are now concentrating on enrolling more students in their schools based on grades.
“Even our traditional schools if they don’t toe that line, the public will blame them for not performing. Schools are subjected to pressure yet this disadvantages the slow learners to perform well,” Atima said.
With the list having less ‘high-flying’ schools, Atima said the ‘small schools’ have abandoned competition and concentrated on adding value to their learners, a reason why they were recognised this year.
nangonzi@observer.ug