As of writing this, the 2022 SPM result has just recently been released. Upon obtaining the overall cumulative average for every school, the rank of each school at the district level will be revealed, which has been a common practice for years now. Other than that, the school will be ranked according to the category of schools such as – urban school, suburban school, and rural school. Highly prestigious schools such as MRSM will have a ranking category of their own. This is somewhat fair as schools are categorized based on their socioeconomic surroundings since socioeconomic condition usually correlates with the level of students’ academic performance. But is it really fair to provide ranking to schools?
At the school level, a recent development in our education system is that students are no longer ranked according to their examination results. On their classroom-based assessment and school-based examination slip, the rank of the student is not stated. This thus reflects the education system’s commitment to doing away with ranking individual students. This has positive effects on students’ emotional well-being and mental health as competition among their peers can be a stressful thing to experience especially at a young age. However, the commitment to do away with rankings is not consistent when being compared to the national examination level – SPM.
It has been acknowledged that the Education Ministry has released a statement that they do not endorse the school rankings released by external parties, as this is a sentiment reflected not only in the current government [1] but also in the previous one [2]. The school grade average is there just to indicate how the school is doing in terms of academics so that they can plan strategies to improve. When doing so, their focus should be on helping the students to get excellent results as this will have an impact on their future – either by enrolling into a tertiary institution or entering straight into the workforce. Both pathways require SPM results. Therefore, the focus to compete with other schools would not arise if the ranking system is not in place. As a result of this, there won’t be any cases of the higher-ups blaming SPM teachers and school admins won’t be stressed out if they fall in school rankings. This has implications for the morale of teachers and school admins.
Finland, the most often talked about nation when it comes to excellence in education, does not rank its schools based on standardized testing. The test is only there to serve as a university entrance exam [3]. It is to focus on collaboration, not competition among schools. Collaboration is the dominant feature of how Finnish teachers see teaching [4]. ‘Collaboration’ is part of the 21st-century skills framework, which is a framework that teachers are encouraged to use in their pedagogical approach and overall leadership. Unfortunately, this concept has yet to be translated or manifested into how some people should see schools and education. Every teacher has something to contribute as well as to complement other teachers, and every school has a unique niche that another school can learn from. If ranking is what we are chasing after, then we will only view other schools as a threat instead of reaping off the benefits of cooperation and collaboration which can help enrich teaching and student learning experience.
Although the Ministry does not endorse rankings, external parties have gone out of their way to rank schools nonetheless. So how do we move away from ranking schools? There needs to be an institutional change – a clear directive from MOE to stop ranking schools. This means, every time SPM results come out, the parties involved need not rank the schools, plus it saves them from doing a lot of work. Additionally, the school grade averages will only be given to individual schools directly from MOE so as to serve as a guide for the school’s academic improvement. It should be kept confidential which can only be known to that particular school, instead of publicizing it. Other than that, the practice of having a school performance dialogue at the district level should perhaps only be left to the responsibility of the school. The reason for this is, to conduct the performance dialogue at the district level and provide tips to the SPM teachers, the district education office must possess the data of every school’s SPM school grade average which might lead them to rank the schools. Devolving this responsibility to the school alone will give more autonomy and decisional capital to the school, and ceasing schools from being ranked.
In conclusion, the practice of assigning ranks to schools prompts concerns regarding fairness and its effects on the educational system. Despite the phase-out of individual student rankings at the school level, school rankings still exist which indicates incoherence in the education system, creating needless stress and competition. It is possible to promote a more enriching learning environment by following Finland’s lead in valuing collaboration above competitiveness. A comprehensive approach to education can be supported by institutional changes, such as a clear mandate from the Ministry of Education to stop ranking schools. The educational experience can be improved further by maintaining the privacy of school grade averages and giving schools more control over performance dialogues.
References
[3] Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland (Pahsi Sahlberg)
[4] Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up (Jelmer Evers & Rene Kneyber)
Written by the Coordinator of HIVE Educators
HIVE Educators | Cultivating teacher-scholars 