English

Murithi Njiru Samson,Nyaga Milcah,Karuku Simon

doi:10.5897/err2020.4071

Abstract

In recent decades, school performance ranking (or ‘league table’) have become a common feature of many education systems in the world. The ranking is usually published by government and news agencies in an attempt to measure and compare the relative performance of individual schools against a number of criteria, including academic performance. This paper reports parts of larger case study that set out to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions of performance ranking in secondary schools in Kenya. The study participants were teachers and students of Mathematics drawn from secondary schools in Embu County in Kenya. Data were gathered through one-on-one semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and surveys. The transcriptions of the audio-recorded interviews and focus group discussions were analyzed by first reading the texts of the transcriptions holistically, followed by the development of codes, organizing the codes into larger categories and, finally, organizing the categories into overarching themes. This paper, in particular, examines the research findings through the lens of the existing literature on school performance rankings. The paper demonstrates how school performance rankings in Kenya have been abused over the years to the detriment of quality teaching and learning. Finally, the paper highlights the implications of school performance ranking for policy and practice. Key words: Performance ranking, league tables, accountability, teaching.

Highlights

In recent decades, demand has grown for accountability and freedom of choice in the education system (Neves et al, 2014; Rosenkvist, 2010)
In Finland, performance ranking is never practiced to avoid affecting the quality of education through unethical practices such as schools teaching for passing examinations to improve their rank in the league table to attract good students and teachers (Annala, 2015)
This study subsequently provides a Kenyan perspective of performance ranking based on a study that sought teacher‟s and student‟s perceptions of performance ranking in secondary schools

Summary

Introduction

Demand has grown for accountability and freedom of choice in the education system (Neves et al, 2014; Rosenkvist, 2010). The use of raw students‟ scores in performance rankings may encourage schools to resort to various forms of examination malpractices such as manipulating the test results and assisting the students with examination questions during national examinations (Kellaghan and Greaney, 2020).

Results

Conclusion