Abstract
Pakistan has a variety of privately managed schools. Inspired by the corporate model the large school systems offer franchise to the small schools in the name of better quality education leading to better market acceptability. This study was conducted to find out the difference in the quality of education provided by the franchise and independent private secondary schools. Ten schools of a renowned large spread school system were selected conveniently and ten independent schools were selected from the same localities for ensuring similarity of the context. Quality of education was defined along input, process and product/output indicators. The opinion of Head Teachers (HTs)/ School principals was gathered through a questionnaire consisting five-point rating scale on input and process indicators. The opinion of HTs about input indicators was validated through direct observation of the input indicators in the schools by one of the researchers. Students’ achievement scores in the matriculation examination conducted by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Lahore were the indicator of quality output. The HTs of the two types of schools perceived no significant difference in the quality of input and process at their schools but the independent schools scoring slightly better on each of the two indicators. However, the independent private schools were significantly superior to the franchise schools in quality of output in terms of students’ pass percentage and distribution over grades. Thus, the claim of franchising for better quality education was not supported by this research.