Determinants of school performance in Selected Public Secondary Schools in Rwanda

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the key determinants of school performance in selected public secondary schools in Rwanda. To this end, this study sought to describe educational inputs provided in selected public secondary schools and to establish the key determinants of school performance in selected public secondary schools in the country. The study was guided by Education Production Function Theory and it adopted a correlation research design. The target population involved 70 head teachers from whom 21 head teachers were randomly selected as sample in this study. Head teacher’s questionnaire and a document review guide were used to gather necessary information on various educational inputs. Ratios, frequencies and percentages as well as regression analysis were performed to analyse data. The findings were presented in tables and graphs. It was found that the selected public secondary schools are not sufficiently provided with educational inputs and the key determinants of school performance in selected public secondary schools in Rwanda include: teacher characteristics, student-classroom ratio, student textbook ratio, students’-computer ratio, availability of physical resources, school recurrent expenditure and school total incomes as they had statistically significant coefficients. Basing on these findings, it was recommended that more investment should be made on the key determinants for greater output among public secondary schools in the country.

Key words: Determinant, school performance, input, output, Rwanda