99 African Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Vol. 11, No. 1, pp 99-105, June 2018 Print ISSN: 0855-9724 An appraisal of academic performance of different school categories in Kwara State, Nigeria Adedapo .A. Atolagbe * 1 , Saheed . Oyeniran 2 & Abdulrahman . S. Omosidi 3 1, 2 & 3 Department of Educational Management, Faculty of Education, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria Email:atolagbe.aa@unilorin.edu.ng *Corresponding Author Abstract This study considered the performance of students in different secondary school categories in Kwara State. The study randomly selected 240 different schools stratified into public and private, day and boarding as well as single sex or mixed sex schools out of over 560 registered public and private secondary schools in the State. A self-designed Academic Performance Checklist was used to collect students’ results while School Categories Questionnaire was administered to harvest information on the characteristics of the different school types. One research question was formulated for the study it was answered using percentages while three research hypotheses were tested using Chi square test. The study found a prevalence of performance differentials between public and private secondary schools as well as between day and boarding schools while differences in performance between mixed gender schools and single gender schools was found to be low. The study found out significant difference between the performances of Public and Private secondary schools in Kwara State ( cal X 2.63> critical X 1.96). A significant difference also existed between the performance of Day students and Boarding students (cal X 2.64> critical X 1.96) while the study found out no significant difference between the performance of Single gender schools and Mixed gender schools (cal X 0.84 < critical X 1.96). The study concluded that school categories and types have a significant influence on the academic performance of students as students from private secondary schools performed better than their counterparts from public secondary schools. Also this influence was significant for boarding and day schools. The study recommended the re-introduction of boarding system in public secondary schools to bridge the performance gap. Keywords: School categories, Single sex schools, Mixed sex schools, Public schools and Private schools Introduction Academic performance of students is a product of several factors: the student, the school, and the system impacts on student learning and on the outcome of learning activities. Academic performance of students has been a matter of great concern to all stakeholders in education because of the substantial amount of resources(financial, physical and human) expended by government and private school owners on the sector. According to the Federal Government of Nigeria (2004), secondary education occupies a unique position in the educational system of Nigeria. It serves as a link between primary and higher education by absorbing the products of the former and supplying input into the latter. There are different categories of secondary education: we have single sex schools where the school population is made up of either male or female students and mixed sex school where the school is made up of both male and female students. There are also Day schools where students come from their various homes to the school every