According to Epstein (1995, p. 702), “the unarguable fact is that students are the main actors in their education, development and success in school.” Schools, family and community partnerships cannot simply produce successful students. Rather, partnership activities may be designed to engage, guide and motivate students to produce their own successes. According to Epstein (1995, p. 702), “if children feel cared for and encouraged to work hard in the role of students, they are more likely to do their best academically, and to remain in school.”
2.3 Parental involvement internationally
According to Heystek (2003), countries the world over acknowledge the important role parents can play in the education of their children. Beck and Murphy (1999) purport that parental involvement in their children’s education is enhanced when they are provided with opportunities to participate in decision making within the school. Many countries have passed resolutions to make parental involvement in school programmes mandatory. In the British and American systems of education, parents and other role players such as teachers play a major function in the management and governance of local schools. However, Bush and Carington (2008, p. 166) believe that “…keeping an eye on the future, and doing what needs to be done to prepare our children for that, is a primary responsibility of parents today.”
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Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (1997) define parental involvement broadly to include home- based activities (e.g., helping with homework, discussing school events or courses) and school- based activities (e.g., volunteering at school, coming to school events). They argue that parental involvement is a function of a parent’s beliefs about parental roles and responsibilities, a parent’s sense that s/he can help his/her children succeed in school, and the opportunities for involvement provided by the school or educators. In this theory, when parents get involved, children’s schooling is affected through their acquisition of knowledge, skills, and an increased sense of confidence that they can succeed in school.
Long (1986) argues that whatever the form of parental involvement, the effect on children’s school performance is positive, provided that the involvement is well planned, comprehensive, long-lasting and serves to integrate the child’s experiences at home with those at school.
Thomlinson (1991) concurs and alludes to a school improvement framework adopted in Birmingham which engaged parents and community members in school improvement alongside leadership, management and teaching and learning. The analysis of schools showed that progress was higher in schools with good parental involvement than in those schools without.
Four aspects of involving parents were outlined. These were: keeping them informed; involving them at school; involving them at home; and offering support through workshops and courses.
Epstein (2001) argues that school, family, and community are important “spheres of influence”
on children’s development and that a child’s educational development is enhanced when these three environments work collaboratively toward shared goals. According to Sheldon (2010), student and family characteristics affect levels of parental involvement. Working-class families and families in which mothers work full-time tend to be less involved in their children’s education than parents of older students.
Schools play a significant role in getting parents and family members involved in students’
education. Dauber and Epstein (1993) posit that school and teacher practices are the strongest predictors of parental involvement. Specific practices where parental involvement becomes evident include: assigning homework designed to increase student-parent interactions, holding workshops for families, and communicating to parents about their children’s education.
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Sheldon (2010) is of the opinion that parental beliefs and perceptions strongly influence their involvement in schools. Parents’ educational aspirations and level of comfort with the school and staff have been shown to predict levels of involvement. In addition, parents’ beliefs about their responsibilities as parents, their ability to affect their children’s education, and their perceptions of their children’s interests in school subjects have been shown to influence their involvement at home and at school. The good results of rural schools were attributed to parent support and lead to voices going up against the planned closure of many rural schools.
According to Epstein (1991), academic gains occur in subjects in which parents feel confident about their ability to support their children’s learning. When parents get involved, children’s schooling is influenced by their acquisition of knowledge, skills, and an increased sense of confidence that they can succeed in school. Many well documented initiatives where parents work with learners and educators within the school and at their homes have been cited. For example, Culling (1985), Topping and Wolfendale (1985), Macleod (1989), and Wolfendale (1989, 1992) have collectively provided testimony of collaborative efforts by the school and parents which improved the educational development of their children.
Marschall (2008, p. 16) posits that “when it comes to their children’s schooling, language barriers and high rates of poverty in Latino, Chicago, cause parents to face great challenges.”
She found that due to a break-down in communication, parents and communities did not support or co-operate with schools and this resulted in a low academic achievement and an increased drop-out rate among learners. However, it was found that in schools that had effective Local School Councils (LSCs), parents were significantly more involved in their children’s schooling and educators became more aware of and more likely to reach out to them. “Parent involvement helped personnel break down cultural barriers, increase awareness of cultural and community issues, and to facilitate school initiated outreach activities” (Marschall, 2008).
Africa also, cannot be ignored in terms of parental involvement. In Botswana, for example, a research study by the Ministry of Education provided conclusive evidence that in schools where parental involvement was non-existent or minimal, learners performed poorly. However, where parents played an active role in the life of the school, results were the opposite (Ministry of Education [MOE], Botswana, 1993). Based on their findings, they argue that parents tend to get
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involved only if there is a crisis whereas, the rest of the time, it is hard work for the principal and educators to get parents involved. The involvement of parents only when crises occur could lead parents to perceive that their involvement with a school is merely a problem solving exercise.
Parental involvement can be viewed as a “preventive” approach in that “problems” can be
“caught” and dealt with before they are exacerbated. However, Dhingra et al. (2008) argue that, traditionally, schools have tended to keep parents out, using the argument that a professional skill such as teaching must be carried out without interference.
Fortunately, however, this attitude was found to have changed in Botswana and schools are trying to encourage parents to take a greater interest in the school (MOE, Botswana, 1993). In our modern era of scientific and technological advancement in almost every human endeavour, parental and community involvement in education has been strongly advocated, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States of America (MOE, Botswana, 1993). This is highly desirable because in our post-modern society we can no longer get every task in the school system effectively and efficiently done by teachers, students and school administrators alone.
Uganda: In Uganda “…every primary school is required by law to have a parent body governing education, called the School Management Committee (SMC), which takes overall responsibility for running the school” (Suzuki, 2002, p. 248). The researcher contests that a lack of transparency in school finances, power imbalances between the head teacher (principal) and parents and the distance between ordinary parents and school leaders caused hindrances to the participation of parents in school governance. Overall, Suzuki found that head teachers tend to dominate school governance and manipulate the work of the SMC in rural areas where some members of the SMC are often semi-literate, as discovered by the International Development Consultant organization in 2000 (Suzuki 2002, p. 252).
Zimbabwe: Although Zimbabwe has the highest literacy levels on the African continent, Chikoko (2006) found that some parents living in rural areas in Zimbabwe had busy schedules and some could not read or write. He asserts that asking them to look at their children’s work was asking for the impossible as the parents’ level of formal school determined their ability to perform school functions. His finding that parents in rural areas have low levels of education
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also applies to the South African context as most people with a higher average level of education are found mainly in urban areas.
Another factor that impacts negatively on the provision of quality education in Zimbabwe, which is the case in many rural primary schools in South Africa as well, was that parents did not attend open days to discuss curricular issues and their children’s progress. Added to this problem in South Africa is the fact that, while legislation dictates that parents must be involved in their children’s education, very little is done to empower them. Chikoko (2006, p. 254) argues that
“with very little capacity building taking place, parents are legally empowered but practically disempowered.” Educational challenges experienced in South Africa are similar to those encountered in Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
According to Dhingra et al. (2008), it was found that in schools in Botswana, where parental involvement was highly visible, teacher effectiveness was apparent and this contributed significantly to the improvement of learner performance. The involvement of parents in reading not only had a positive influence on the children, but parents’ knowledge base was also enhanced. Children felt confident about going to school in light of their parents’ involvement at school. Parents tended to see themselves as playing an integral role, together with the school, in educating their children (Dhingra et al., 2008).
Studies conducted internationally have therefore illuminated that when parents are involved in the education of their children, the children perform better at school.