Not quite like home...school edition

Grading and reporting of grades in Ghana is very different than at home. At home, I input grades into a computer program all semester long, and then after a couple of clicks, the data is sent data winging its way to a central location where it is put together into a report card. Here, there is no winging data, no computer collation, there is....carbon paper and individual student record books and no instantaneous reporting of grades (it took me about 3 hours, I think to record all my grades).

Here's how it works: the teacher grades the students' end-of-term exams and multiplies by .7 (end-of-term exams are worth 70% of the students' grades - this makes it difficult to convince students that any other classwork is worth doing), then you take the students' grades for the rest of the term and multiply by .3, then you add the two numbers together to get the grade for the term. Don't forget you also have to figure out class rank in your class - luckily I was using Excel for my grades, so all of this was easier for me than I imagine it was for many of my colleagues.

This information is taken and entered into the books (pictured below). Each student has a book. Their grades for all their classes while at Achimota are recorded here. Three copies have to be recorded for each term - this is where the carbon paper comes in. It went something like this: find the stack of books for one of my classes, find two pieces of carbon paper, open the first book to the appropriate pages, insert the carbon paper, record the grades, rank, sign it, remove carbon paper, pick up next book and start over. Oh, and the books are not in alphabetical order which would speed the process up.


Here is what the pages in the books look like:

I do not know if you can read the grading scale at the bottom, so let me reproduce it here:
Scores Grade Comment
80-100 A1 Excellent
75-79 B2 V. Good
65-74 B3 Good
60-64 C4 Credit
55-59 C5 Credit
50-54 C6 Credit
45-49 D7 Credit/Pass
40-44 E8 Pass (no credit?)
39 & below F9 Fail

This is difficult to wrap my brain around - grades that are bad at home are not here. Before I left for Ghana parents in FCPS were in discussion with the County over the grading scale, which they thought was too harsh and therefore hindered their children in college admissions and in scholarship competitions. Maybe they would like something like this? A bit more lenient, yes?

Oh, and just so you know, I was told today that this sign is no big deal. I was a little worried when I saw this posted in several locations on campus, because at home it would be a big deal (and in Zimbabwe, as well).