Author(s): Ibn Kailan Abdul-Hamid, Benjamin Baroson Angenu and Anas Sulemana
Education in todays competitive environment has not only become a major industry and need of the day but it is also an investment by the parents for their children. In public as well as in private sector the quality of education is an important factor that is considered for attracting and retaining the students who want to get education. The objective of this research is to compare the pupils expectations and perceptions of service quality among public and private basic schools in Tamale Metropolis. The research adopted the SERVQUAL model of Parasurraman et al. (1988). Data was collected from 200 pupils (Hasan et al., 2008) from eight schools including 4 private and 4 public basic schools in the Tamale Metropolis of Northern region. These basic schools were selected purposively but pupils were contacted conveniently. The results show that pupils are dissatisfied with services of Tangibility, Assurance, Reliability, Responsiveness and Empathy from both private and public schools. Private schools provide better educational quality of service than public schools, but both kind of schools failed deliver to the expectations of their pupils.