Modupe Adefeso-Olateju: Are private schools really better than state schools? (Y! Policy Hub)

by Modupe Adefeso-Olateju

Mo-Adefeso-Y-Policy-Hub

….a child in a tuition-free public school may record lower scores not necessarily because of factors relating to her school, but because her living conditions are not conducive to learning, or maybe because she has to hawk goods or take care of her Oga and Madams’ children every day after school and is usually too tired to study afterwards.   

When I first asked this question at a gathering of professional colleagues in Nigeria, the immediate response was impassioned.  I’ll paraphrase: ‘What?! Look at the calibre of children that attend private schools – they dress well, they can speak proper English, they comport themselves well.  In fact there is no comparison!  Have you visited a state school recently?  Seen the dilapidated structures, non-existent furniture and uninterested teachers?  In fact have you spoken with a state school pupil recently?  And you still ask such a question? Of course private schools in Nigeria are far, far better than state schools!’  A few others were more measured in their responses.  They felt that if we excluded private schools for the poor – otherwise known as low-fee private schools – that private schools were certainly giving far more bang for the buck than public schools.  One lone voice however was of the opinion that we couldn’t as at yet tell – at least not scientifically anyway.  In her opinion, for us to conclusively state that private schools are far more effective at educating children, we would first need to subject both public and private schools students to the same personal, home and school conditions. Thus began an exploratory journey that I will expand upon in this and subsequent articles.

I’ll start by explaining what the lone voice meant.  For us to properly compare pupils in public and private schools, we must begin by assuming that they are similar in every way save for the type of school they attend.  This way, we can more accurately determine whether attending a private school makes any fundamental difference to learning.  Of course we also have to determine what we mean by learning.  I, like many other researchers, chose achievement on academic tests as a measure of how much a pupil has learned, and consequently as a proxy for how effective the school type in question is.  Now, how do you accomplish the feat of making public and private school pupils similar when they most certainly are not?  Again, like many other researchers, I used a statistical technique known as modelling.  This simply means that one collects available data, analyses the patterns of such data and based on such patterns, projects probable realities.

But why embark on this exercise in the first place?  Let’s consider a scenario: Assume Dupsy-Doo Private School charges N40,000 a term (N120,000 a year) as tuition.  A family that can afford those fees for perhaps two children, will likely have a television set at home (maybe even with cable/DSTV to boot), perhaps a computer which the children have access to, and parents that are most likely educated, have a source of income and can perhaps afford to pay for after-school tuition or lessons.  When we test a pupil from this school and find that comparatively, her scores are much higher than those of a pupil from a neighbouring state school, it would be erroneous to immediately conclude that her superior results are due to the private school she attends (although this could certainly be the case).  It could be that her results are related to her exposure to the educational programmes available on cable television, or because she has the chance to properly research her homework on the family computer, or even perhaps because she has an amazing after-school lesson teacher or extremely motivated parents who help with school work and constantly push her to study at home.  On the flip side, a child in a tuition-free public school may record lower scores not necessarily because of factors relating to her school, but because her living conditions are not conducive to learning, or maybe because she has to hawk goods or take care of her Oga and Madams’ children every day after school and is usually too tired to study afterwards.

As I travelled from the North to the East and then the South of the country collecting data, I made some interesting findings, some of which were extremely disturbing.  For example there was the school in Ngwo, Enugu State that didn’t present candidates for JSCE Biology because a Biology teacher had not been posted to the school.  There was also the Principal of a mission school in Surulere, Lagos who argued that trying to eradicate poverty by providing opportunities for poor children to receive an education was against some divine law, which ‘created us unequal’.  But I digress…

In subsequent articles, I will share other findings which contextualise the effectiveness of public and private schools in Nigeria.

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Modupe Adefeso-Olateju is Managing Director of The Education Partnership Centre (TEP Centre) Lagos.  She is an Education Policy Consultant with expertise in public and private school effectiveness, and the design of Public-Private Partnerships in Education. She holds a PhD in Education and International Development from the Institute of Education, University of London. Modupe sits on the board of the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council London, and is passionate about helping young people fulfill their academic and career potential. She tweets from @tepcentre

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Comments (4)

  1. This is a debate worth having. I do not believe that we can readily attribute the divergent academic performances of kids to a public-private school divide. To be sure, there are factors that matter. Public education is frequently paralyzed by strikes meaning that teaching is often intermittent. There are also serious structural problems with basic education owing to the dysfunction of local education authorities and the multiplicity of supervisory agencies (local, state and federal). On the whole, it may be said that private schools are a safer, more predictable choice. However, I’d argue that significant class differences which result in a profound divergence of living conditions account for more the disparities that we notice. A family that can afford a private school would likely have a computer, cable TV, and internet connectivity. By reason of class alone, their children would enjoy access to a vaster universe of knowledge, not to mention enjoy better nutrition and health. A counterpart raised in a low income family may return from school to engage in street hawking and other arduous forms of labour, have no access to knowledge resources and suffer malnutrition and ill health all of which impact their learning capabilities. There is no way that both sets of children who live in virtually different universes can compete fairly so it may be argued that the basis for a fair comparison is non-existent. The problem, however, is that this class divide holds serious implications for social harmony in the near future. Given the incidence of poverty in Nigeria, It is clear that the elite private school kids will grow up to be outnumbered by their less fortunate cousins. Their advantages will continue into adulthood with access to plum jobs and better and healthier neighbourhoods while their cousins will probably inherit low-skilled jobs or no jobs at all and the rapidly expanding urban ghettoes.This is a recipe for social instability. Without equalizing access to education, and creating a minimal base line of conducive living conditions for everyone, there can be no hope of having a common citizenship. And without a common citizenship, there will continue to be much crime and social unrest. As always thanks for the article.

  2. This is really enlightening. I hope the Nigerian Government read this.

  3. Good article. We cannot achieve a long lasting solution to the crisis in the educational sector without proper analysis and evaluation of the current state of education in Nigeria. We need to know where and how to devote scarce funding and other resources Dr. Modupe is asking the right questions here and I look forward to the other articles in the series.

  4. Well done Mo’.. a topic worth reviewing. I also agree with the thesis that value-added concepts like students background, aptitude for learning, home
    environment and the influence of peer groups etcetera, should be taken into consideration in measuring school effectiveness. Cheers

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