Despite the Rwandan government‟s efforts to improve quality of education by
increasing the supply of educational inputs in secondary schools, educational
output continues to be below international standards. Therefore, the purpose of
this study was to determine whether and to what extent the relationship exists
between educational inputs and output in public secondary schools in
Nyamasheke and Nyarugenge districts. To this end, this study sought to identify
educational inputs provided in public secondary schools located in Nyamasheke
and Nyarugenge districts, determine the extent to which each educational input
provided correlate with educational output, find out the determinants of
educational output and explore the strategies adopted by school managers to
enhance educational output. This study was guided by Education Production
Function theory and it adopted a correlation research design. The target
population involved 2248 students, 70 head teachers and 2 district education
officers, making a total population of 2320. A sample of 241 students, 21 head
teachers and 2 district education officers was used. Stratified sampling, simple
random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were used to select this
sample. Questionnaires for students and for head teachers, document review
schedule, and interview schedule with district education officers were used to
collect relevant data. Expert judgment and test-retest techniques were used to test
instruments‟ validity and reliability respectively. Descriptive statistics such as
frequencies, percentages, means were used to describe the provision of inputs,
and Pearson r as well as regression analysis were used to describe the
implications of educational inputs for output. Thematic analysis approach was
used for qualitative data. The findings were presented in graphs, tables and texts.
After data analysis, it was found that educational inputs are not sufficiently
provided. It was also found that among endogenous inputs, teacher academic
qualification, professional training, experience, availability of library, and
laboratory student classroom ratio, are the key predictors of students performance
as each of them account for between 41% and 78% of student‟s performance.
Furthermore, it was found that among exogenous inputs, the key predictors of
students‟ performance are their prior performance and their parental educational
level as they explain between 18% and 43% of students‟ performance. Among
financial inputs the study revealed that expenditures on staff, on boarding, and
recurrent expenditure are the key predictors of students‟ performance as their
contribution varies between 44% and 62% of school mean performance. It was
recommended that the government and other stakeholders should invest more in
provision of the key educational inputs to enhance output. It was also
recommended that means should be provided to implement the strategies adopted
to boost the quality of educational output. Future researchers were recommended
to carry out a similar research in primary schools and universities to see if
educational inputs provided have the same implications at these levels of
education.