CHAPTER FIVE
FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS,
RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1. Introduction
This chapter presents the discussion of the major findings, in
relation with the background and literature review. The researcher's personal
views are also included arising from statistical inference, observation and
interpretation of situations encountered during the study. The conclusions are
given based on the findings and consequently, recommendations were made based
on the conclusions. Other areas for further researches have also been indicated
at the end of this chapter.
5.2. Findings
Difference in performance between private and public primary
schools
The outcome of the analyzed data showed that there is a
significant difference between the academic performance of pupils of private
and public primary schools. The findings confirm what was found by Afolabi
(2005) in his study which examined the influence of a specified primary school
education experience on the academic performance of junior secondary students
I, in Methodist Grammar School, Bodija. This Nigerian scholar realized that
students who had private school background outperformed their counterparts who
attended public primary schools in English and Mathematics. These findings
answer the first research question by showing that private primary schools of
Gasabo District perform better than public primary schools.
These findings seem to discredit, to some extent, the standard
of education in the public schools since their products could not compete
favorably with the products of the private schools. This may be flashing the
danger light as regards the future of the next generation of elders and the
fate of education industry in Rwanda. The anticipated future problem becomes
more evident when one considers the proportion of the Rwandan people living
below the poverty line vis-à-vis the financial involvement of sending
one's child to the private schools where resources are available and adequate,
and where pupils and teachers are motivated and where finally, good academic
performance is expected from.
School facility and academic performance
The outcome of this study also showed that in private primary
schools resources are more available and adequate than in public primary
schools. Firstly, the inventory of educational resources in private and in
public primary schools has shown that there is a big gap between the demands
and the supplies of educational resources in public primary schools of Gasabo
while this gap is very little in public and seems to be inexistent in private
primary schools. These results allowed the rejection of Ho.2 and hence to state
that in private primary schools resources are more available and adequate than
in public private schools'. The important effects of inadequacy or lack of
educational resources are lack of motivation, tiresome teaching and learning,
inattention to individual learners, high rate of school dropout, low quality of
teaching and learning etc. which cause finally the poor academic
performance.
Secondly, in testing the degree of the difference between
teachers and head teachers' views on the effects of inadequate educational
resources on academic performance, the results showed that teachers and head
teachers of private primary schools of Gasabo are more proud to work in their
school environment than their counterparts of public primary schools. They also
showed that they are generally satisfied with how their pupils learn and how
they are evaluated. However, in public primary schools, there is a big gap
between what teachers and head teachers wish to deliver as education to their
pupils and what they actually deliver because of very limited educational
resources.
When the difference in academic performance is compared to the
difference in availability and adequacy of school resources in both private and
public primary schools of Gasabo district, it becomes clear that both adequate
supply of good teachers and school resources greatly influenced students'
academic performance in PLE. These results confirmed the views of some writers
like Fafunwa (1979), Fagbamiye (1977), Fayemi (1991), Moronfola (1982), Momoh
(1980) and Popoola (1981).
From the above findings and the ideas ad hoc; enrolling one's
child in private primary school predicts his/her good future as there is no
doubt that the private school proprietors pay more attention to their teacher's
input into the pupils than do the public schools (Salawu & Adedapo, 2001).
They also spend substantial amount of money to provide instructional materials
for the teaching and learning process. They take their students out on
fieldtrip, excursions and so on, which are not obtained in most public schools.
Unless the political leaders pay attention on this gap between private primary
schools and public primary schools, the segregation in education will continue
to prevail while the government of Rwanda created RNEC aiming to establish a
body that would eradicate at all costs all forms of discrimination in the
education system and establish on objective, fair, transparent system in which
the main indicator for equity in education system is the individual performance
level and the right of choice to any school or institution on Rwanda. In
accordance to the difference in performance realized between pupils of private
and those of public primary schools, and to the economic level of most
Rwandans, the right to good quality may not be accessed as only well - to - do
Rwandans may manage to enroll their children in quality schools that is
enrolling them into private primary schools. For sure it is what is done by
rich people and high ranked officials of Rwanda even those of the Ministry of
Education.
To increase the provision of adequate material resources for
the teaching of all subjects is much recommended. It is opined that human,
physical and financial resources do not necessarily make much difference in
terms of pupils' learning outcome. It is the efficient use of these resources
and not just the availability that matters. It is therefore recommended that
the resources made available to the primary schools should be efficiently
utilized and the school environment should be made conducive for learning in
order to improve pupils' learning outcome.
The study findings established a relationship between teacher
quality and pupils' academic achievement in Gasabo and this finding relate with
a wide range of findings on the relationship between teacher quality in and
student outcomes. Hanushek (1986) found that fewer than half of the 109
previous studies on the estimated effects of teacher quality showed that
quality had any statistically significant effect on student achievement; of
those, 33 studies found that other factors were also had a significant
positive effect, but seven found that more experience actually had a negative
impact on student achievement. Other studies show a stronger positive
relationship between teacher quality and student outcomes in some, but not all,
cases they reviewed (e.g., Greenwald et al., 1996). Murnane (1995) suggests
that the typical teaching learning curve peaks in a teacher's first few years
(estimated at year two for reading and year three for math). It is also
plausible that a positive finding on quality actually results from the tendency
of more senior teachers to select higher-level classes with higher achieving
students (Hanushek, 1986). Thus we might reasonably infer that the magnitude of
the quality effect, should it exist, is not terribly large.
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