Methods: The study design is cross-sectional, using descriptive questionnaire and clinical oral examination. The sample frame is all 12-year-old public and private secondary school pupils in Imo State. Four public and 4 private secondary schools were randomly selected from each of the 3 senatorial zones. Fifty random students were then selected from each of the 24schools giving a total of 1200 consenting 12-year-olds. The Chisquare test and Mann-Whitney U-test were used to determine the differences between groups and sub-groups. The level of significance was set at p<0.05.
Results: The percentage of caries in this study was 33.3% for public and 66.7% for private representing a doubling in the private secondary schools. The probability of having caries experience was found to be statistically significantly associated with the school type and socio-economic status (p=0.00). The mean DMFT was 0.25, and this was 0.04 for public, 0.20 for private. The decayed component was the highest, 0.11±0.44 for public and 0.33±1.04 for private.
Conclusion: The children from private schools are more financially empowered than those from public schools. Hence they have more money to buy cariogenic foods and drinks. All stakeholders, the parents, school authorities, snack vendors and the pupils must work closely together to improve the oral health of these pupils.