Parental Involvement and Pupils’ Academic Achievement:A Case of North “A” District Schools of Unguja

This study was conducted to investigate the factors that influence parental involvement in the development of their children's literacy in the schools of Zanzibar using North “A” District schools of Unguja Zanzibar as a case study. The study specifically focused on identifying forms of parental involvement in literacy development of their children at schools. It also examined the awareness of parents towards their involvement at schools in the study area and explore the cultural factors which hinders effective parental involvement at North “A” District schools of Unguja Zanzibar. The study employed cross section research design where 62 people from North “A” District of Unguja Zanzibar have been involved including the key informants such as REO, DEO Parents, Head teachers, Teachers, and Pupils. In order to get relevant information from the respondents the major techniques used for data collection were questionnaires, interview, and documentary review. Data were then analyzed and summarized into frequencies, percentages before presenting them in tables and graphs to give clear understanding of the study with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Microsoft excel. The general findings revealed that most parents have poor parental involvement in academic studies of their children. Factors for negative parental involvement in academic studies of their children were identified as poor form of parental involvement, poor parental awareness pertaining involvement in academic studies of their children, poor parents‟ attitude towards involvement in academic studies of their children; poor cultural factors that affect parental involvement in academic studies of their children and poor parents background affecting parental involvement in academic studies of their children. Therefore, the study recommended that parents should be educated and should be sensitized about their roles