A Comparative Study of Pupils’ Performance in Quantitative Aptitude Test in Public and Private Primary Schools

Abstract

The study compared performance of pupils in public and private primary schools in quantitative aptitude test. Sample consisted 640 final-year pupils, aged between 9 and 13 years (public=320, private=320) selected from 64 schools (public=32, private=32) across the 16 local government areas of Ekiti S tate based on stratified random sampling technique. Data were collected using aptitude test and analysed using means, standard deviation and t-test, tested at 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that pupils in private schools both in urban and rural, performed significantly better than pupils in public schools suggesting the need for effective monitoring of instructional activities of teachers in public schools to avoid failure of achieving the objective of primary Mathematics education which emphasises pupils' proficiency in numeracy and logical reasoning.