Parents Preference for Students’ Choice of Urban Schools in Benin City, Nigeria: Integrated AHP Intuitionistic Fuzzy Topsis

Abstract

The paper examines the attributes considered by parents for school choice enrolment for their children and wards. Four classes of school alternatives with twelve attributes were considered in this work. A survey was randomly carried out in the three Local government areas in Benin City. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was adopted  in evaluating the attributes, while intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution) was applied in the ranking of the alternatives. In adopting the method two metric functions were used with both producing same result indicating consistency and correctness of results. The Missionary schools (A4) is the most preferred of the 4 alternative schools, closely followed by private schools for middle class (A2) as second best preferred and the premier private schools for the elite (A3) is third best preferred. While, the Public (government) schools (A1) is bracing the rear as least preferred of all the 4 alternatives. It is concluded that adopting scientific approach to humanistic system is appropriate and produces accuracy in results.

Keyword: School choice, intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS and attributes