Stanine grading appropriate for SHS placement — Dr Anti

Dr Anti, an education expert and Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies, has stated that the Stanine Grading System for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) is conceptually appropriate for placing students into senior high schools and technical institutes. This is because placement into these institutions is fundamentally a selection and ranking exercise.

According to Dr Anti, the system enables candidates to be compared based on their performance relative to their peers and differentiated for allocation into limited school and programme places. However, he emphasizes that while the system is defensible for placement, it does not automatically make it the best possible system. Dr Anti stresses the need for periodic evaluation of the system's effectiveness in terms of fairness, accuracy, and transparency.

He notes that the critical issue is whether the system ranks candidates fairly, accurately, and transparently for placement purposes, rather than whether Stanine measures absolute mastery of the curriculum. Dr Anti also suggests that there is a strong argument for considering standardized or appropriately scaled scores, which could provide greater precision than broad grade categories.

The concerns over only about four per cent of candidates occupying the highest Stanine category do not, on their own, establish that the system is unfair. Under the classical Stanine model, the highest category is intentionally occupied by approximately the top four per cent of candidates, which is appropriate for placement purposes.

Dr Anti also points out that allegations that the system disadvantages candidates from private schools should be supported by evidence. Any credible evidence suggesting systematic differences that cannot be explained by candidate performance should be independently investigated. Dr Anti's insights also raise a broader question about whether Ghana's assessment philosophy has sufficiently evolved to reflect the country's curriculum reforms.

While a standards-based curriculum focuses on what learners know and can do, Stanine primarily indicates where learners stand relative to their peers. He points out that the country still needs a mechanism for ranking candidates since BECE is now primarily used for placement. However, this does not prevent a review of the system to achieve better alignment between curriculum, assessment, and placement.

Dr Anti calls for greater transparency in the grading process to improve public confidence in the examination system. He also recommends clearer explanations from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the Ministry of Education about what BECE represents, particularly if it is principally a placement examination.