In a study published in the Cambridge Journal of Education, it was found that private education isn't associated with better mental health. The findings of the study, carried out recently, suggest that those who went to a private school in England were no happier with their lives in their early 20s than their state-educated peers, as reported by ANI.
In an earlier research, it had been found that students who studied in private schools performed academically better than students who opted for state-run schools. In London, the pupils in private schools amount to almost 7% of students in England. Though the private institutions have more money to spend on non-academic fields, like mental well-being, and they have actually spent more resources towards this in recent years, the study concluded that no clear evidence links private school students' mental well-being with the schools.
The research was carried out on youth ranging between the ages of 14 to 25 years. Mental health was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire, which is a standardised and validated measure of mental health, comprising of twelve questions. It was analysed that there was hardly any difference between the mental well-being for both boys and girls studying in private and state schools at any particular age, considering all socio-economic background and ethnicity aspects. The finding surprised the researchers.
"But it is also likely that although school resource is greater in private schools, the academic stress students face might be too and so we see each force cancelling the other out," Dr Morag Henderson, a researcher said. Researchers from University College London (UCL) had analysed data from the Next Steps study, run by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, which follows the lives of a representative sample of 15,770 people, to find out more.
