INTERVIEW - 'Pity cements the status quo,' says Zug's education director, pushing schools for more performance

Stephan Schleiss, the education director of the canton of Zug, is implementing a new policy requiring mandatory grades for all school examinations, a move aimed at boosting student performance and ensuring transparency. This decision comes as some schools have moved away from traditional grading systems, opting for methods like smileys or color codes, and sometimes withholding graded exams from students and parents. Schleiss views this trend as problematic, potentially leading to parental uncertainty and hindering their ability to monitor their children's academic progress.

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We have found that grading is increasingly being tinkered with. Schools are dispensing with grades or replacing them with smileys or color codes. And partly they no longer send the exams home with the children. This also leads to uncertainty among parents.

Schleiss defends the use of grades as a clear and transparent assessment tool, beneficial for students, parents, and the economy. He asserts that grades are a direct reflection of performance and that attempts to dilute this concept are misguided. While acknowledging that alternative symbols like smileys are not inherently bad, he insists that any such system must be transparent and clearly linked to a grading scale, ensuring that parents and students understand what each symbol represents in terms of academic achievement.

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Of course not. But an assessment system must be understandable and transparent.

He argues that his intervention is necessary to prevent the issue from escalating to legal disputes and to ensure parents can exercise their rights effectively. Schleiss believes that while schools should be encouraged to innovate, the core system of grading should not be tampered with. He counters the argument that grades provide a false sense of precision or can be demotivating, stating that grades are based on objective standards and defined learning goals. The goal, he emphasizes, is to accurately reflect a child's capabilities according to established benchmarks.

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We had to intervene before the matter occupied the courts. If parents only see at the end of a semester that their child is on the decline, they can no longer properly exercise their participation rights.