4.3. EXPERIENCES RELATED TO THE TEACHING OF ACCOUNTING
4.3.2. Lack of parental support
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support are not available in rural schools to assist teachers. One teacher revealed that for assessment purposes she had to use her personal resources to ensure that schoolwork is not compromised. This is what Tom revealed:
“In doing assessment, i.e., class test, I must type the test myself on my own laptop, no school computer.”
On the other hand, Tom was concerned about electricity outages. He echoed that in rural areas electricity power cut can takes days to be sorted out and they could not duplicate copies during this time. This affected their planning as they had to postpone assessment programmes.
“I can even write a test on the chalkboard, but it takes time to write Accounting questions on the board.” (Tom)
Sam had the same feeling as he believed that electricity outages in rural schools affect the daily planning, especially for assessment, causing unexpected postponement due to no electricity for the duplication of copies.
“Sometimes the electricity would be off while the test is set and ready for duplication. That means you are forced to postpone the test.”
While the schools experienced the challenge of insufficient internal funds to keep teaching and learning going smoothly, it is clear that interruptions in the supply of electricity also hinder the effective teaching of Accounting in rural schools.
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This study found that parents were not supportive of their children enrolling for Accounting because of the perceptions they have of the subject. Novice teachers revealed that Accounting is perceived to be unnecessary in rural communities because there were no role models for these children in these poor communities. Sam indicated that:
“Some learners are forced to leave Accounting for Science because their parents believe that the subject is unnecessary as there are no individuals in their communities who are successful through Accounting.” (Sam)
Novice teachers revealed that parents in rural areas who were taking part in their children’s education were not aware of career paths for Accounting learners, while being more informed about Science-related career paths such as doctors and engineers. Therefore, these parents believe that the learners should enrol for the Science stream as they associate it with good future. Jerry reported:
“Parents could not see the importance of the subject because some learners who were now willing to enrol in Accounting, their parents forced them to do Science believing that Science is the only stream associated with a good future of their children.” (Jerry).
The role of parents goes further in helping to ensure that learners engage in their homework activities so as to keep them in line with what was learnt at school and to measure the level of understanding for the learnt content. However, Jerry reported that parents in rural schools are not supportive of their children as far as time for house chores and schoolwork is concerned. This is what Jerry stated:
“Sometimes a learner would tell you that he did not do the homework because parents had chores lined up for him when back from school, there was no time for it.” (Jerry)
Sara shared the same concern about the lack of support many learners receive from their parents, saying teachers can sometimes clearly detect the root cause of leaners’
behaviour in the process of teaching and learning, this had a lasting effect as far as formal and informal assessment was concerned. This is what Sara shared:
“Some learners will not write homework and come with so many excuses or are absent from school even during the day of the test.” (Sara)
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Accounting as a subject is practical in nature, and learners and teachers need a large amount of time to ensure that learners understands he topics. As a result, Accounting many novice teachers give up their relaxation time on Saturdays to offer themselves for extra classes to ensure that learners get enough time to engage with the subject.
However, teachers revealed that parents in rural schools are against the notion that school should go beyond Friday to push learners with extra Accounting lessons.
“Parents in these communities are very reluctant to let their children to come for Saturday classes, they believe this day is for learners to push house activities.” (Sam)
“Asking learners to come during weekends was like I am coming with a completely new way of doing things, the community belief doesn’t agree with the fact that learners should leave their chores on weekends and go to school.”
(Jerry)
“You will not get learners on weekends and if you track the reasoning behind, a learner will tell you that at home we were farming the whole weekend and my father said school starts on Monday and ends of Friday, no one is going to school.” (Sam)
Moreover, parental support in education includes attending school-planned meetings during the year. Novice teachers were more concerned about the low parental involvement in the education of their children. This study revealed that most parents in rural areas do not attend school-planned meetings, including departmental meetings with specific agendas i.e., tracking the performance of the learner, setting goals for the department, etc. Sam said:
“Out of twenty-five parents expected in the first-term meeting for Grade 12 Commerce learners, I was very astonished to observe that less than thirty percent of parents were present.” (Sam)
Parents in rural areas do not support their school-going children in various aspects and this has a lasting effect on the process of teaching and learning Accounting.
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