We need more school rankings

IT IS quite obvious that people are generally fascinated by rankings. I think people are naturally competitive and so they will always love to find out positions in respect to certain aspects of life. A poor man will be interested in knowing who the top five rich people are even though he stands zero chances of either meeting them or sharing in their wealth. Forbes magazine is essentially a business magazine but it has cut its reputation as one that offers rankings of all kinds. Whether it is the top 400 billionaires in the world, the richest women, richest world leaders, highest earning entertainers or sports personalities. The Guinness Book of World Records is another compilation of different records and rankings that will fascinate any curious mind. Wouldn’t you want to know about the tallest man, the fattest woman, the man with the longest beard or even the country with the shortest or tallest people in the world? Sports and games are also largely about rankings and positions. You have no idea how many people wake up on Monday only to see the position of their favourite team in the English Premier League table or those who were desperate to follow the Olympic Games just to find out whether Usain Bolt is still the fastest man in the world. The other day the Rwanda National Examinations Council released results of Primary Leaving and O Level Examination results. The same was done in Uganda and Kenya for primary schools. As a matter of ritualistic practice the release of results always comes with the ranking based on performance. And, yes, we all love to know who the best student was, what made them special and which school topped the rest or what happened to the one that topped last year. The competition to shine in these rankings is so stiff that in many cases examination malpractices are directly fuelled by this competition just like Lance Armstrong took performance-enhancing drugs to be the best cyclist. However, if we are to ever achieve a more holistic approach to education it is important for us to diversify these rankings. Why should the media, for instance, offer so much space to the top performing schools in a national examination and offer just a few inches to students who may have performed well in a national science competition? What about in the field of sports? Do we even know which school has the best football team or track and field records? The same would apply to other areas like music, dance and drama. Which schools are performing well in these fields? I loved the headline I saw in the Kenyan daily, The Standard (online version), that said “Mutula unveils top child-friendly schools.” In other words, the Education minister was unveiling a ranking system based on the learning environment of the schools. Schools were, thus, assessed on such issues as the book to student ratio, teacher to student ratio how child friendly their classrooms are. It is basically all about assessing the facilities that a school has to offer and rank it based on that as opposed to just how many first grades they may have. With such diverse ways of ranking schools, parents and prospective students would be better informed before making the choices about which schools to join. For example, if my son loves sports I would be very happy to see the top ten most sports friendly schools. A list showing which schools have sports grounds and dedicated sports’ teachers would help me make an informed decision. Let us cast the net wider and capture much more data that we can use to provide our children the very best there is. So next time someone is ranking the top ten they should think of all the variables that can be ranked.