Samuel Nariochukwu Owhondah, (Ph.D.) Department Of Educational Management, Faculty Of Education, Ignatius Ajuru University Of Education, Rumuolumeni, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Abstract.
The study determined the demand and supply of education and price discrimination in private secondary schools in Rivers State. Three research questions guided the study. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population constituted ninety-nine private secondary schools in the area while the sample was ten schools which represented 10% of the target population. The Demand, Supply of Education and Price Discrimination Inventory (DS PDI) of Private Secondary Schools and the a document analysis were used for data collection. Using the Cronbach alpha, reliability index of 0.77 was obtained. The averages of the data generated were computed. The results revealed that the demand for education was low and supply was high due to discriminatory prices (fees), and with a low student-teacher ratio. It was therefore concluded that private schools that charged high fees also had high teacher supply and that culminated in low student-teacher ratio and impacted quality education in those schools. It is recommended that private schools should be made affordable for students to attract high demand, and supply should be regularly checked with demand to maintain the approved student-teacher ratio for the attainment quality education. Besides, more private individuals should be encouraged to invest in private secondary schools at reduced fees to avert imbalance and augment public secondary education.
Keywords: Education; demand for education; supply of education; demand and supply balance; price discrimination price of education.