A Comparative Analysis of Student Achievement by School Type in Zimbabwean Secondary Schools

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine statistical differences in levels of student performance in ZlC English and Mathematics between six secondary school types in Zimbabwe. 5293 Form 2 students who wrote ZlC examinations in 33 secondary schools in 1989 participated in the study. As predicted, students in high fee paying schools performed better in both English and Mathematics than students in former group A, former group B (urban and rural), mission and rural district council schools. While students in former group A schools performed better in English than students in mission, former group B (urban and rural), and rural district council schools, the situation in Mathematics was different. Students in mission schools performed significantly better ill Mathematics than their counterparts in former group A schools who performed significantly better than students in former group B (urban and rural) and rural district council schools. Evidence from the study shows that students in former group B rural schools performed significantly better in English than students in former group B urban schools contrary to the postulated predictions A startling finding was that rural district council schools performed in Mathematics as well as fornter group B urban schools despite the critical shortages in human, financial and instructional resources constraining them. Students in mission schools significantly did better in both English and Mathematics than their counterparts in former group B (urban and rural) and rural district council schools. The evidence from this study strongly indicates that there are significant variations in the quality of secondary education in Zimbabwe dependent on the type of secondary school. As is evident from the characteristics of the school types, schools with sufficient provision of material and non-material inputs,, and with high teacher stability tend to produce better student results even though the resources might not be efficiently utilized to produce optimal student performance.