The Relative Performance of Different Types of Primary Schools in Bangladesh: A Multilevel Modeling Approach

Abstract

This study aims to compare the performance of public primary schools with private primary schools and ebtedayee madrasahs, and identify the significant predictors associated with school performance applying the multilevel model. Using the dataset collected (2015-2016) from 1230 fifth-grade students and 60 teachers of 60 primary schools of three different types (public, private, and madrasah) in the northern part of Bangladesh, we find that the performance of public primary schools is lower than that of private primary schools but higher than ebtedayee madrasahs. But after adjusting for student- and school-level predictors, the better effectiveness between public primary schools and private primary schools or public primary schools and ebtedayee madrasahs is disappeared. Finally, we find that the schools having optimum levels of teachers’ belief, school academic atmosphere and learners’ prior achievement, learning time; time needed to complete the homework, home academic atmosphere, self-educational expectation, and self-educational confidence are likely to achieve better performance. Recommendations are drawn to maintain the quality of primary education, one of the most important policy agendas, under the National Education Policy 2010 of Bangladesh or the policies of other countries that would ultimately enhance the probability of attaining the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4).