A study to examine learners', teachers' and parents' perceptions of, and factors that hinder paretnal involvement in the education of their children

Abstract

Abstract provided by author:

An attempt was made to determine inter alia the learners, teachers and parents' perceptions of parental involvement in the education of their children, the factors that hampered parents from being actively involved in their children's education and whether parents involvement in their children's education enhanced the performance of the learners at school. The target populations were all the primary schools and one combined school within the Windhoek Education Region of Namibia. Proportional stratified sampling was used to select the schools. Three questionnaires were administered to 57 learners, 40 teachers and 50 parents in order to collect data from them

The findings of the study revealed that there was a lack of parental involvement in the education of their children at the formerly disadvantaged primary schools as well as the combined school. Some parents did not seem to know what parental involvement is all about. Some parents thought that parental involvement was when they were only involved in one aspect of their children's education such as sending their children to school everyday or paying the school fees

In the study a number of factors which hampered parents from active participation in their children's education included the parents' level of education, distances from home to the school, the absence of transport, single parents and the bad attitudes of some teachers and principals in their approach towards the parents among others. Some parents, particularly those who had children at the rural schools were not only hampered by their level of literacy to participate in the education of their children, but also by circumstances beyond their control such as the distance of the farm from where the school is located, the unwillingness of the farm owners to take them to the schools in order for them to attend school meetings as well as various other activities

The study recommended that the schools should organize workshops for both teachers and parents to create a shared understanding of expectations concerning parental involvement in the education of their children. Principals and teachers should change their attitudes towards parents and become more approachable. Schools should have clear objectives with regard to issues whereby parents must be involved in the education of their children