Anatomy education in Ethiopia - the effect of school background on medical school performance

Objectives: In Ethiopia, western modern education has been introduced in 1908, though there has been traditional education starting from the entrance of Christianity in Ethiopia in the sixth century. Currently, there are thousands of government and private schools in the country. The objective of this study is to identify who scores well in anatomy in the university; students coming from government or private schools? Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used to assess the effect of high school background on medical students’ performance in anatomy among 120 randomly selected students at Bahir Dar University College of Medicine and Health Sciences. Results: Anatomy is given for medical students as separate course in regional approach for ten months after they complete premed courses as five hours lecture and one hour practical session per week. Students than take an exam with theoretical and practical parts, after completion of each region. Out of 120 randomly selected students about 64% joined the university from government schools and the rest were from private schools. From the government school group, only 17% of the students scored low. However, out of the total private school students 40% were low scorers. There was a statistically significant correlation between school background and medical student performance in anatomy (p=0.007). The odds of private school students performance in anatomy was 3.22 times lower than those of government school students (p=0.007) Conclusion: Students graduated from government high schools perform better in academics than students graduated from private schools.