Schools change grading system for patronage

Teachers spend nearly every day of their teaching lives wrestling with the paradoxes of the classroom grading system in trying to make it fair and conducive to learning.
Grading is a powerful tool schools use to communicate with their students, parents, inspectors and other external entities.
In the past, both public and private schools use the report card system which is designed to report on students’ progress using specified objectives per subject and an unlimited number of subjects. As such, it is suitable for use in both primary and secondary grade levels.
But a lot of private schools in Lagos have resorted to the use of other grading systems to retain patronage.
Some use either the interval grading or the five-letter grades (A, B, C, D and E) in place of number or class positions (1st to last) system as a way of measuring academic excellence in report cards at the end of each term. In the ‘position’ grading system, students are evaluated in relationship to one another thus; it promotes competition rather than cooperation.
In the latter system, A corresponds to ‘excellence,’ B to ‘good,’ a C is ‘acceptable’ or ‘average,’ a D is ‘poor,’ and an F is ‘unacceptable’ or ‘fail.’ The advantage according to one teacher is that students are not compared against one another, and all have the opportunity to pass the standard. Students are not competing with each other and are thus more likely to actively help each other learn. A student’s grade is not influenced by the caliber of the class.
Private schools were said to have jettisoned the position system due to many reasons, one of which is that every parent wants to boast that his or her child is “a straight A student,” in their report cards.  
Sam Eribo is a seven-year-old pupil of Sunmabod Nursery and Primary School, Ifako/Ijaiye, Lagos State. Eribo, now in Primary 3, was said to have topped his class as at the time he was promoted from Class Two. A look at the Eribo’s report card however gave no indication that he actually led the class as there was no stated academic position to that effect.
 
Mary, Eribo’s mother, said she has gotten used to not seeing any position in her son’s report card since two years ago when the boy was promoted from Nursery class to Primary I.
“When he returned home that day, I looked through his report card over and over again. Although I could see the approximated percentages, I could not find a single space where First, Second or Third position was written,” Mary Eribo said.
Mary however said when she made enquiries at the school, her son’s teacher simply told her that he did well and has so been promoted. She said when she pressed further about his position, she was told not to bother because what mattered was that he passed all his subjects excellently and has thus been promoted accordingly.
“I was told his was among the best results in the class of 15 other kids. They said the interval grading system is the modern way of rating pupils, that it does not mean they are compromising standard, rather it was a way of ‘making the children and their parents comfortable,” Eribo said.
Making the children and their parents “comfortable” is perhaps the latest trend that has been adopted by private schools in Lagos. Daily Trust correspondent’s checks across schools in the state confirmed that proprietors have devised ‘percentage or interval’ as replacement for ‘position grading system’ as a way of attracting patronage. Others use the five-letter grades. They adopted the new systems to reduce failure and dropout rates, and somewhat keep students motivated if they suffer an academic setback.
Unlike the position grading system that is specific, the interval approach brings about ‘group promotion.’ For instance, a child who scores 70 will earn ‘Excellent’ just as a child whose score is 95. So, if about six out of seven pupils in a class score between 70 and 100, they will all get ‘Excellent’ without stating specifically whether it was 70 or 95 marks that any of them had.
“If between two pupils, one scores 60 and another one scores 69, both will go home with a ‘Very Good’ grade. It is the same for pupils who score between 50 and 59 who will simply be rated ‘Good’ and those who score between 40 and 49 who will be rated as ‘average’ or ‘fair,” Bimbo Taiwo, a class teacher in one of the private schools in Oko Oba, Agege area of Lagos, said.
Taiwo also said her school proprietor often told them during result compilation exercise that she was not ready to lose patronage to other schools because “some parents can withdraw their children the moment they see their wards not performing well.”
Asked about selection method for prizes in a scenario where many pupils emerge with ‘grouped promotions,’ Taiwo said teachers do simply refer to the raw scores in Continuous Assessments and Examinations sheet and select names of those with highest marks.
At Joytoria Schools, Satellite Town, Lagos, Kelechi Otom, the school’s head teacher, said there is nothing unusual about the interval grading system because it is the same as what is obtainable in tertiary institutions. She also refuted the claim that such is aimed at retaining patronage for schools.
 “You can’t say the grading system automatically results to mass promotion of pupils. If a pupil scores below 40 in the overall computation of his or her result, it means he or she has failed and it means he or she will have to repeat the class,” Otom said.
Asked about the failure rate of pupils in her school, Otom said the rate is low because the school  identifies students who need extra attention, and organize extra classes for them.
In contrast, public schools in the state still use position grading system.
“There is no reason why we shouldn’t,” Prince Seun Akitoye, the Press and Public Relations Officer of Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB), said. The agency is responsible for the regulation of primary education and the first three years of secondary education in Lagos, he said, adding that “all public schools under us still use the position grading system to measure their pupils. It might be difficult for me to comment on what the private schools grade their pupils with and why they do so.”