While there is a group of people that thinks that the best performing students need to be rewarded in order to acknowledge their efforts and achievements, others think that it is more important to acknowledge improvements made by students. Each of these points of view has its own merit.
Firstly, acknowledging the achievements of the best performing students helps to create a climate of excellence among them since many of them spend considerable amount of time studying hard to get good grades. Besides, rewarding them makes other students strive for excellence as well since it raises the academic level at such institution.
However, rewarding progress of students that made significant changes in their academic performance can make them even more determined and motivated. They can feel better since they can see their progress and this gives them an extra motivation to continue improving their grades.
I think that although it is important to recognize achievements, it is crucial to emphasize improvement made by students since it motivates everyone without exception.
To conclude, even though rewarding the best performers encourages excellence, acknowledging improvement helps to create more motivating environment.