What School Still Can't See: Reflections from Supporting 60+ Student Innovators at the 10th Stanbic National Schools Championship

A few years ago, when I first started working with student innovators, I started to notice a strange pattern. This became something I thought so deeply about and didn't have all the answers to. Since at the time of my career I mostly dealt with higher Institutions of learning, I didn't have the full picture why almost everyone that complained about the education system couldn't clearly tell why "it's broken" and what exactly they think could be done about it. Since I was finally working with institutions of higher learning, I felt like I now had the chance to influence this big change. However, I basically had no idea what I could be doing differently.

Most recently, I had a chance to mentor at the 10th anniversary of the annual Stanbic Bank Uganda National Schools Championship. Without even realizing it, I had an opportunity that would enable me to experience things firsthand. Finally, questions I'd carried for years began to sharpen. "Why is it that someone would do so well in school and fail to replicate that success in real life?". "Why would someone not do so well in school and still be successful in real life after school?" Despite going through the same school system. What exactly is school measuring? And what is it missing?

In school, we measure things that are easy to grade: memory, neatness, speed under pressure, exam technique. But in the world outside school, success depends on a completely different set of traits: Resourcefulness, Clarity of thought, Learning agility, Courage and Follow-through. None of these have a space on a UNEB examination report card. Could this mismatch have consequences? Could it mean that the system is mislabeling students? Could this mean often training them to optimize for the wrong outcomes? To chase grades instead of understanding? To avoid failure instead of learning from it? And because grades are easier to communicate than potential, they become the language we trust, even when they fail to describe what's real.

The Curriculum Review Tried to Fix This

To be fair, Uganda's new lower secondary curriculum tries to fix some of this. It's designed to focus more on competencies. It encourages practical learning, continuous assessment, entrepreneurship. But here's the paradox: the delivery still depends on the old assumptions. Most schools still treat learning as a content transfer. Since teachers are usually overloaded, practical subjects are taught theoretically. Entrepreneurship is defined, not practiced. And even now, a student's future still often depends on how well they perform in a final exam. The curriculum changed. But the system didn't.

What I've Learned from Working with Student Innovators Overtime

At the Stanbic Bank Uganda National Schools Championship, and StartHub Africa, we've spent years mentoring & coaching student innovators, young people trying to build ventures while in school. It's here that I've seen what school can't see. We don't grade them. We don't test them on definitions. We give them a problem and ask: "What would you build?", "How would you solve this?", "Go and solve this!". And that's where their real selves show up. Some students panic. Some take initiative. Some disappear. Some figure things out without clear instructions. Some take ownership. Some care enough to keep going when the process stops being fun. Others iterate. And only when their solution works in the real world do we call it complete.

At this year's Stanbic Bank Uganda National Schools Championship, I saw the same thing, high school students building actual innovations, testing ideas, presenting with confidence. Some were initially not able to articulate their ideas very clearly on paper yet could give a great presentation. When they verbally explained what they were working on, you could understand every aspect of their innovation. Despite not being able to articulate very well on paper, what they were building was really great. They had amazing ideas & innovations (which, unfortunately, I can't reveal here). Evaluating such a student based on what they wrote on paper would lead you to mislabeling them, and that's exactly what school would rather do instead, because it's easier to evaluate that way. It's easier to mark an essay than it is to evaluate initiative, resilience, or execution. The latter is harder and needs a bit of work, passion and real effort from the facilitator's side.

One of the guest speakers, Mr. Rapa Thomson Ricky, co-founder of SafeBoda's story further reinforces this narrative. Ricky dropped out of school at a young age. His background was marked by hardship. But after losing a close friend to what should have been a minor boda accident, he started a simple campaign encouraging fellow riders to wear helmets. That act of care evolved into a city-wide movement. Then into a company. Then into a continentally recognized brand. Today, SafeBoda isn't just a business, it's a public safety revolution. No one gave Ricky a grade for starting that campaign. There was no classroom rubric for saving lives with a helmet. And yet, that decision has impacted thousands. What this shows is simple, but uncomfortable: output reveals more than scores ever will.

Photo credit: Stanbic Bank Uganda. Rapa Thompson Ricky sharing his story at the championship.

So, What Should Education Measure?

I'm not saying grades don't matter. I'm saying they don't matter as much as we think they do. If we want to build a generation that can solve African problems, we need an education system that cares more about what students can build, think, or contribute than what they can recall. Imagine a national exam where:

• Students pitch their ideas instead of writing about them
• Teams are assessed on how they solve a problem, not just explain it
• Collaboration, iteration, and execution count as much as memorization

That's not a fantasy. That's the kind of system we're refining every day with Stanbic Bank Uganda and StartHub Africa at the Stanbic National Schools Championship, and it works. Because when you change what you measure, you change what people aim for.

What School Still Can't See

School can't see the student who leads quietly, but powerfully. School can't see the builder who's terrible at tests but brilliant with people. School can't see the maker who doesn't speak up in class but keeps showing up to build after others quit. But at the Stanbic Bank Uganda National Schools Championship, we see them, every year during the championship. And if we redesign education to reward the right things, maybe someday, school will see them too.