The article evaluates the quality of the service offered by public schools located in Paraiba and adjacencys. For this, were captured expectations (importance) and performance in relation to a set of eighteen attributes; which are related to teachers (technical knowledge, didactics, incentives offered to students), the tangible aspects (classrooms, toilets, library), the teaching materials available, school organization (timetables, administrative services) and institutional reputation. We used a structured questionnaire to capture the 1394 students answers from seventeen educational institutions. With the support of Statistical Package for Social Science - SPSS, version 19.0, descriptive statistics were extracted and the Spearman test was performed. The results showed that the standard of students' expectations, in essence, is heterogeneous. In general, the most valued attributes refer to teachers (knowledge and stimulus), while those related infrastructure (internet, multimedia resources and safety) were perceived as less important. Moreover, the set of actions appointed by competitive positioning matrix and performance evaluation matrix can assist in management decisions to improve the service levels provided by public schools.
https://doi.org/10.15366/reice.2017.15.2.002