Perceived Mental Health among Students of Private and Government Schools

Since, private and government sectors differs to each other in terms of their cultural values, other related opportunities and problems, therefore, the present investigation is planned to make a comparative study of mental health among students of private and government schools. It was hypothesized that students of private schools would have better mental health as compared to the students of government schools. The sample of the present investigation consists of (N = 160) respondents, 80 students from each private and government senior secondary schools were randomly selected from different parts of Aligarh, U.P. A highly standardized mental health inventory consisting of 56 items developed by Jagdish and Srivatava (1983) was administered individually to each respondent of the sample. This inventory assesses 6 dimensions of mental health such as self-evolution, perception of reality, integration of personality, autonomy and stability, growth oriented attitude and environmental mastery. In this inventory high score is indicative of good mental health and low score is indicative of poor mental health. Finally, t-test was employed to analyze the data of the present research. Statistical analysis reveals significant difference between means of two groups of private and government schools. The findings of this research may have its own significance and far- reaching implications in this context.