Is it worthwhile to continue to spend whooping sums of hard earned money on private secondary schools, when their products end up trailing behind students of public schools? This is a question many parents may begin to ruminate on as available statistics have shown that students in public schools outperform their colleagues in private schools in the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations.
Education is free and compulsory in many of the 36 states of Nigeria, while on the average, private schools pay exorbitant fees in tuition and others.
Figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics last week, obtained by Sunrise News today, capturing results by students in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory between 2016 and 2018, showed generally a wide gap in the performance of public school students against their colleagues in private schools.
Only Jigawa bucked the trend in 2018, when 15 percent of private school students enrolled that year scored 5 credits and above, as against the 9.42 per cent scored by public school students.
But the percentage variance is insignificant as the state registered only 20 students from private schools that year for the examination, as against 22,424 students who registered from public schools. Out of the 20 in private schools, three succeeded in getting five credits, including English and Maths. In the public schools, the success level was much higher, 2113 students out of the 22,424 got five credits and more.
In 2016, the public school students, despite their higher number, performed far better than the tiny number of candidates from private schools.Out of the 207 candidates from private schools, only 21 got 5 credits and above, while 4128 candidates from public schools succeeded. There were no records for private students in 2017.
In other states and the Federal Capital Territory, the statistics clearly showed that parents need urgent evaluation of their preference for private schools over public schools. The WASSCE results negated the preference.
In the FCT, out of the 2917 students enrolled for the 2016 WASSCE, 6.1 percent got five credits and above. In contrast, out of 20,141 public school students, 49.4% got five credits plus. In 2017, just 3.8% of WASSCE candidates from private schools got five credits and above, while 61.83 percent of the 21,514 registered by public schools passed.Last year, out of 2424 candidates enrolled by private schools, just 6.11 percent got five credits and above, while 52.11 percent of the 23,622 from public schools hit the same level of success.
Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous state brings out starkly the performance disparity between students in public and and private schools.
In 2016, 78,905 students from private schools registered for WASSCE, while 145,186 registered from public schools. But in the results for the year, 44.3 percent of the private students got five credits and above. However 63 percent of students from public schools hit the same success level. In 2017, performance of private school students hit a big slump, dropping to 26.4 percent of the 58,883 registered, while 65.5 percent of the 154,430 public school students scored five credits and above. Enrolment of candidates for WASSCE shrank further in 2018, with 48,651 sitting for the exam. Although 44.43 percent got the five credits plus, the performance fell short compared with public school students. Of the 162,066 students who sat for the examination, 60.7 percent got five credits and above.
Niger state also showed a similar trend. The percentages of the average 1200 students registered for the three years were 23.3 per cent in 2016, 10.8 in 2017 and 12.36 in 2018. In contrast 33.9 percent of more than 50,000 students of public schools got five credits plus in 2016, 37.54 in 2017 and 25.13 in 2018.
Nasarawa, Ondo, Osun public school students also performed better than students of private schools. Osun, where students in government schools were given a tablet of knowledge presents an interesting contrast between public and private schools.
In 2016, out of 36,685 students presented for WASSCE by government, 45.5 % got five credits and above. Only 18.5 % of the 2,753 students registered by private schools hit the same level of attainment. In 2017, performance in private schools dropped to 13.9% out of 2,426 candidates who wrote WASSCE. Public school candidates still maintained a pass ratio of 43.5% This however fell to 4.85% in 2018, while private schools recorded 13.46 per cent.
In Ogun state, the success rates of private and public school students were close for the three years.In 2016, Ogun registered 26,756 candidates from private schools and 84,886 in public schools. While 48.4 % of private school candidates passed with five credits plus that year, 52.2 % of students from public schools made the cut. A similar picture emerged in the following years with 40% success by private schools in 2017 to 54.14% in public and 40.29 for private in 2018 to 51.69 public.
Of all the states, Rivers and Abia returned the highest levels of successes for students of public schools. Rivers returned 75% in 2016, 82.3 % in 2017 and 77.82% in 2018. Private schools got 43.6% in 2016, 18.2% in 2018 and 29.55% in 2018, out of an average of 8,000 students for each of the three years.
Abia also reported 71.1% in 2016, 76.53% in 2017 and 82.2% in 2018. The private schools with low population of about 600 candidates got 10.3% in 2016, 32% in 2017 and 51.42% in 2018.
Anambra also returned over 71% success in five credits plus for public school students in 2016 and 2017, while private candidates wallowed in miserable scores. But last year, performance of public school candidates dipped to 51.4 per cent.
In 2018, 1.57million candidates from public schools sat for WASSCE conducted by the West African Examinations Council.
In 2017, 1.56m candidates did the exam. 822,941 of the candidates were male while the remaining 748,595 were female. 849,069 of the candidates had 5 credits and above including English Language, 1.06m had 5 credits and above including Mathematics while 756,726 of the candidates had 5 credits and above including Mathematics & English Language.
The percentage of candidates with 5 credits and above including Mathematics & English Language is put at 48.15%.
Similarly, a total of 109,798 candidates sat for WAEC in private schools in 2018 as against 133,258 candidates in 2017. 54,417 of the candidates were male while the remaining 55,561 were female. 47,122 of the candidates had 5 credits and above including English Language, 47,434 had 5 credits and above including Mathematics while 37,184 of the candidates had 5 credits and above including Mathematics & English Language. The percentage of candidates with 5 credits and above including Mathematics & English Language is put at 33.81%.
Lagos State has the highest number of candidates in public schools while the state also has the highest number of candidates in private schools who sat for the examination.
*Download the WASSCE statistics here:WAEC RESULTS STATISTICS 2016-2018