A Comparative Study of Quality of Education in Public and Private Secondary Schools of Punjab

The quality education is an indispensable and inevitable agent for change as education is a process of civilization and development. The issue of deterioration of quality in education in Pakistan, especially decline in quality of secondary education was the slogan of the day. The major purpose of the research was to compare the quality of education in public and private schools of Punjab. All the secondary schools, their heads, secondary school teachers and students of 10th class of public and private sector of the Punjab constituted population of the study. Punjab is generally distributed in three different stratus, which are North Punjab, Central Punjab, and South Punjab.Due to limited time and resources, the study was delimited to the nine districts of Punjab namely Rawalpindi, Chakwal, Attock, Lahore, Gujranwala, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bahawalpur, Mianwali and Sargodha. Two hundred and sixteen secondary schools (twenty-four secondary schools from each sample district) were randomly selected. The proportion of public sector schools and private sector schools, boys and girls schools was equal. All the heads of selected 24 secondary schools of public and private sector from each district (the proportion of public sector schools and private sector schools, boys and girls schools was equal i.e. fifty fifty) were included in sample. One thousand and eighty teachers (one hundred and twenty from each sample district) constituted the sample of the study. The proportion of the public and private, male and female teachers was fifty fifty. Four thousand, three hundred and twenty students studying in 10th class in public and private high schools of already sampled district of Punjab were randomly selected as the sample of the study. The proportion of public and private and male and female students was fifty fifty. Three questionnaires, one each for heads, secondary school teachers and students, prepared and validated through pilot-testing, were used as the research instruments of the study. The researcher visited the target areas personally, distributed the questionnaires himself, and got filled questionnaires back from respondents. The data obtained was tabulated and analyzed by using simple percentage and two way chi square tests. Main conclusions of the study were: that private sector schools had actually less number of students and teachers at secondary level as compared to public sector schools. The results of 10th class students in boards’ examinations of private schools were better than government schools. While with respect to ownership of building, almost 98% public sector schools had their own buildings and majority of private schools was running in rented buildings. In public sector schools student-teacher ratio was higher than private schools. Heads of private sector secondary schools were better than heads of public sector secondary schools regarding involvement of subordinate staff in decision making, keeping themselves as a part of team while leading them and carrying out the well- organized tasks. But the heads of public sector secondary schools were more qualified academically as well as professionally, having more administrative experience as compared to private sector secondary schools’ heads. Teachers of public secondary schools were more qualified academically as well as professionally having command over teaching methodology as compared to the teachers of private secondary schools. In public schools, in service training was provided to teachers and their selection was done on merit. They had also job security and their pay structure was well. In contrast, private sector was lacking these factors. Behaviour of teachers of private schools was motivating and they encouraged questioning and enhanced creativity among students, whereas public schools were lacking these factors. Availability of A.V. aids was excessive in public secondary schools as compared to private secondary schools but their use was more in private public secondary schools. Position of physical facilities was better in public secondary schools than in private secondary schools with respect to buildings, libraries, play grounds, furniture. While position of private sector secondary schools was better in availability of computer labs and gas. Respondents of both the systems were of the view that curriculum of both type of systems was not up-to-date, fulfilling emerging needs of neither society nor it was being revised regularly. The major recommendations are: more schools be established in public sector. School mapping be kept in mind before establishing new schools. The heads and teachers of school should take such necessary actions which may help to raise academic standard of their school. The heads of public schools should take seriously the problem of their low pass percentage. Teachers of public schools may be held accountable on showing poor result in examination. They must be given incentives for showing good results. Teachers of both systems be given opportunities to get training in order to improve their teaching skills. Libraries of public and private schools be kept well-maintained and all necessary treasure of books be present in them and students and teachers should be allowed to get benefit from library. Teachers should make more use of A.V. aids to make teaching process more effective.