1.2 Statement of the Problem.
Since the creation of the RNEC, the difference in performance
between private and public primary schools of Rwanda has been a reason for
privileged parents to opt to enroll their children into private primary
schools. As asserted by The Centre for Research on Evaluation, Standards &
Student Testing (2009), the Right School is Only the Beginning of a Lifetime of
Educational Enjoyment. Finding a good school for one's child is only the
initial step. The education of the child is above all a cooperative effort that
involves the school, teachers, parents and the community. Since almost all
primary schools of Rwanda follow the same curriculum set by the MOE, then could
the reason why people think the private schools are better be because the
teachers and/or the quality of teaching are better than those in the public
schools (who, it is believed, are more well paid and more qualified with
schools which have better facilities)? If this is true, then it would be
necessary to know why then public teachers are not doing well. If this is not
true then why public teachers and the MOE's officers and staffs (who are
looking after the quality of public schools) send their own children to private
schools (which just show their own lack of faith in the quality of their own
teachings/system)? Afolabi A.O. (2005) examined the influence of a specified
primary school education experience on the academic performance of junior
secondary students and found that students with private school background
performed better than their counterparts with public school background in
English and Mathematics. While this study was comparing performance in private
and public schools it was not in Rwanda's context a gap this study thought to
bridge.
In addition, in Rwanda, as in any third world county, private
primary schools are attended by privileged children from rich or privileged
homes. For example, in Rwanda, by simple observation it is true that there is
almost no private primary school in rural districts while in Kigali city
districts, the number of private primary schools tend to surpass the number of
public and private subsidized ones. In rural areas those schools cannot find
customers simply because rural families are generally poor. According to
Winkler and Vander G. (1996), pupils from poor families are also condemned to
attend poor schools where modern infrastructures such as electricity and other
related development indicators are still inexistent, pupils will have many
occasions to be absent from school looking for subsistence means, and there may
be so many problems relating to health and malnutrition, problems that tend to
dramatically limit educational opportunities by lowering and impeding
concentration and cognitive development. While a number of factors account for
the varied academic performance of pupils in primary schools, the nature of the
schools seem to play a key role, hence the need for this study to determine the
effect of the nature of the school on the academic performance of pupils using
the case of Gasabo district in Kigali city Rwanda.
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