| dc.description.abstract | As the current nursing practice increases concerns about nursing students' academic performance, there had been high rates of failure among diploma nursing students in their final examinations in Tanzania. The purpose of this study was to do comparative analysis of academic performance of diploma nursing students of public, private and faith based schools. An ex-post facto research design was used in which 116 students were randomly selected from a target population of 1154 pre-service diploma nursing students, who sat for their final examination in July, 2013. A checklist form was used as research instrument and data gathered were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences 21 version (SPSS) computer software. The findings of this study revealed that public nursing schools admit pre-service students with higher entry qualifications as compared to those admitted in private and faith based schools (p =0.000). Moreover, a significant positive relationship between students' entry qualifications and academic performance in nursing schools was found (r = 0.212, p =0.022). No significant difference in academic performance of students from public, private and faith based owned nursing schools (p =0.059) was also found. Furthermore, no significant relationship between tutors' educational qualifications and students' performance in those modules they taught was identified. Therefore, it was recommended to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to centralize admissions of students into diploma nursing programs in order to have equal and fair treatment of applicants during selection. Furthermore studies to be carried out to identify institutional factors that are likely to influence academic performance of students in diploma nursing schools in Tanzania.
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