Comparative Analysis of the Early Childhood Education in Public and Private Sector Schools

Abstract

This study was designed to compare the situation of Early Childhood Education (ECE), provided in public and private sector schools. The major objectives of the study were to evaluate the learning abilities of the students who were receiving early childhood education, to study demographic variations of students in relation with their learning ability and to study availability of physical facilities in the public and private sector schools for early childhood education. In this study, data of 100 respondents was collected from two distinct groups; students enrolled in ECE and teachers teaching to ECE level. Among them 60 students and 40 teachers were included. Data was collected from the schools located at Rawalpindi and Islamabad. In order to make a comparison between public and private sector schools quantitative approaches was used. For the measurement of students’ learning ability data was collected with the help of a standardized tool developed by ASER (2014) for English, Urdu, Math, General Knowledge and for the measurement of teachers’ perception regarding availability of physical facilities in public and private sector schools a separate research tool was developed by the researchers. Findings revealed that learning level of students who were enrolled in the private schools was higher than the students enrolled in public sector schools and girl’s studying in private schools have high learning level than boys in public school. Results also revealed that overall there was a lack of physical facilities for pre primary children in both sector schools. Findings of the study would be helpful for public and private sector schools and agencies those are working in early childhood education. Study would be helpful in creating awarenessamong teachers and administrators about the importance of ECE in relation with learning abilities of students.