A Comparative Role Of Public And Private Scetor Institutions As Education Providers In Improving Issues Of Access And Quality In AJ&K Pakistan

A comparative study was conducted to evaluate the role of public and private sector insti-tutions at primary level in terms of education quality in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K) Paki-stan. The research work was primarily based on view points of main educational stakeholders i.e. headmasters/principals, teachers, students and parents to evaluate the role of public and private sector school. Study outcomes directly focused the issues of educational access and quality by comparing the factors affecting the performance of both types of schools. All public and private sector primary schools from AJ&K Pakistan were target population however,150schools were accessible from, Muzaffarabad, Poonch and Mirpur divisions of AJ&K. The study sample from each school comprised headmasters/principals, teachers, students and parents, thus the sample consisted of1050individuals i.e.150principals,300teachers,300students and same number of parents from public and private institutions. The study was descriptive based on a closed ended questionnaire. Response from each subject was collected on a five point rating scale. Prior to ini-tiate data collection, the instruments developed was validated by expert opinion and subjected to pilot testing. A profile of the participants was then developed in IBM SPSS version21. Mean and standard deviation were used for description of data where as interpretation was strictly based on statistical techniques applied such as t-test for independent sample and Man Whitney U-test to elevate the scores of performance indicators according to perception of each stakeholder.Findings revealed that public sector schools have qualified teachers as compared to pri-vate sectors schools because in the latter, majority were professionally untrained. However, number of teaching positions in private sectors school was higher than public sector schools where only one to two teaching positions were available in55%of public sectors schools. A con-siderable degree of job dissatisfaction was observed among teachers of private schools due to low salary but these schools are found better in administration, teacher’s performance, home-work routine, assessments, availability of physical facilities, and planning of co-curricular activi-ties than public sector schools. No significant difference in overall examination results was found for both type of schools but students of private schools showed better percentage of obtained marks as compared to public schools. Results of this study conclude that professionally qualified teachers and sufficient human re-sources along with adequate infrastructure are necessary for optimized working of school system.The most imminent challenge that public and private schools of AJ&K appear inadequate human and material resources for provision of quality education. Findings of this study can be signifi-cantly used by educational policy and decision makers to improve the situation in both public and private sectors schools.