Olodo with a First Class

what if the grading system itself is the problem not the students not the teachers the system we built to measure whether learning actually happened right now across most of our institutions the student who can repeat word for word what the lecturer said gets an A especially in Africa it does not matter whether they understood it it does not matter whether they can apply it to something if they memorized it correctly then they can pass that's not what you call education that's just like an echo and it's even harder to fix because the lecturers that are grading this way were graded that way they came up through the exact same system they were rewarded for repeating their own teachers never rewarded for original thinking because really nobody ever asked that of them so the cycle just continues and even compounds this is even why the quality of research coming out of the continent still continues to struggle this is not because people lack intelligence but because people were never assessed on whether they could think only on whether they can recall so what if we graded differently what if participation counted not just attendance did you engage in that room did you push back did you ask a solid question in that room did you engage with the material not just read it did you actually wrestle with it what if critical thinking and evaluation carried real weight could you take what you were taught and actually assess it question it or even build on it that's not lowering the standard that's actually raising the standard because regurgitating something is easy thinking is quite hard and for generations now we've been grading students on the easy thing I'm honest with myself that this is not a small fix it's a hard conversation but it's one that is worth having until process finally becomes the standard not just outcome alone because a generation that only knows how to repeat will never be a generation that knows how to build I'll see you in the next one