AN ASSESSMENT OF SCHOOL CLIMATE AMONG PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS OF ARBA MINCH TOWN

Abstract

School climate is the quality and character of school life which is based on patterns of students’, parents’, and school personnel’s experience of school life of which Ethiopian school’s records are few. Cognizant of this gap this study has been undertaken. The study examined school climate of public and private schools. The study was based on four major elements of school climate (safety, teaching learning, interpersonal relationship, and school physical environment). In this study both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The respondents were selected using both probability and non-probability sampling techniques. Questionnaire, interview, FGD and document analyses were used to collect data and the quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean, percentage, and standard deviation. To determine the relationship between elements of school climate and type of schools, T-test was utilized. Furthermore, data obtained from interview, FGD, document analysis and open ended questions were qualitatively analyzed. The study revealed that school climate was found to be significant contributor of academic achievement to private schools than public schools. It was concluded that private schools are better in creating positive school climate than public schools and school climate and students’ academic achievement has positive correlation to one another; and sharing best experiences one from the other, employing different motivating strategies, treating students with respect and others were recommended.