Experts want education system to promote all-round learners

As the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) winds up this year’s national examinations, education experts have called for an overhaul of the country’s education system to shift from the current grading system to nurturing all round talents.

 Mr Ves Ivanov, the head teacher of 7Hills International School, Kampala, told this publication in a recent interview that shifting from grades to a whole-person development would help learners achieve their full potential.

 “Focusing on grades over feedback to improve learning is a very dangerous mistake to make for any education system. It is also dangerous to the learners because it pushes them in the wrong direction,” he said.

“Education is about helping children to achieve their full potential. It is about understanding the different needs of different students and how best to support them to succeed in life. Training must have long term benefits,” he added.

Mr Ivanov said education systems that place more importance on grades or statistics than the process of learning are likely to bring examination malpractice into play.

Mr Ves said whereas students at his school have been able to exhibit exceptional performance in academics, the school’s focus is on the learners’ progress, not the grades.

“We don’t share grades after an assessment. We share feedback, where teachers discuss with individual learners areas of improvement,” he said.

While appearing before the Education Policy Review Commission recently, the UNESCO chair for education ecosystems for equity and quality of learning, Prof Hannele Niemi, emphasised the importance of automatic promotion of learners.

Prof Hannele advised that learners should not be subjected to national assessments since emphasis is placed on the grades as opposed to the skills and knowledge a learner was able to acquire in a given period of time.

Mr Ves also said it is important for schools to challenge and motivate students through active and project based learning that connect their classwork to the real world of work, to enable them to be creative, expressive and think out of the box.

Amanda Kohler, a student of year 11 at 7 Hills International School, said the teaching at her school is interactive and teachers strive to ensure that students understand what they are taught, as opposed to memorizing what they learnt.

Ms Romina Wilke Kohler, the founder and school board member, said the International Middle Class Years Curriculum (IMYC) for years 7-9 is specifically designed around the critical needs of the adolescent brain, and takes an interdisciplinary project based approach to learning.

She also emphasized the importance of keeping small numbers of learners per class.

Ms Wilke also said that students are encouraged to give back to the community. The learners raise their own money to finance community projects through activities such as staging plays at a fee, planting and selling seedlings or through baking.

Ms Bonita Kwizera, Founder and Chairperson of 7Hills International School Board said the school also nurtures the learners’ sports potential.

“Every day starts with an hour of sports to make sure that student are strong and alert, healthy and ready to learn,” she explains.

Background

Before the new curriculum was rolled out, the performance of learners was presented in percentage scores of between 0 and 100 per cent. This has since changed for the Lower Secondary Curriculum, which is currently competence-based. 7Hills International School was founded in 2017 by a team of parents in Kampala.

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