Parental involvement in the education of their children : a case study of one government primary school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

ABSTRACT Parents are children s first and most enduring educators. When parents and professionals work together, the results have a positive impact on the child s development and learning. Parental and professional relationships benefit all: teachers, parents, and students. The major objective of this study is to investigate the existing practice of parental involvement in the education of their children in primary school and to find strategies to increase parental involvement based on the views of interviewees in the study and from document analysis. To get in depth information about the degree of parental involvement in the education aspect, the degree of Parent-Teacher interaction at school and Parent-Child interaction at home was also assessed through interviews. Document analysis was also very helpful for this study to asses whether the policy guide lines and documentary files in the school and the sub city inspire parents to become involved in primary school education. Parent-Teacher and Parent-Child interaction was also investigated. The investigations considered the factors that are included in the students ecology and gave more attention to those included in the home, school, and community, in addition to the relation between the school and the family. To make the findings and the study more clear, related literature and theoretical aspects of the ecological theory (Bronfenbrenner) and other theoretical perspectives were included in this study. This study therefore used a qualitative research approach and analysis with a case study design in order to study the phenomenon in depth. Data was obtained through different instruments of data collection which included semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion and document analysis. The views were gathered from nine main informant parents and three information rich participants who were purposefully selected from the target school. The data was analyzed using interpretational analysis in which the data obtained from different informants and document analysis was classified under categories and sub categories. Data from each category was cross-checked and conclusions and recommendations were drawn based on the data. The overall results in this study seemed to show that, initiative which was taken by the school to involve parents in economic aspects of the school was satisfactory. But the school and the teacher s initiative to involve parents in primary school education was very low and parents initiative to become involved in the academic aspect of the school was also low. This study has also found that parents were involved only to a limited extent in decision making activities in the school. The findings further point out that there were barriers which made the relationship between parents and the school weak. The Parent s economic problems, low academic status, busy life in the society, lack of awareness, the perception of female parents, weakness of the school in inspiring parents to become involved in the education, exclusion of parents from being involved in decision making, (especially in planning), limitedness of parent-teacher interaction at school, inconvenient meeting day, and low level of parent-child interaction at home were found to be the major barriers in the whole process of co-operation between parents and the school. Therefore, this study found that the extent of parental involvement in primary school education was very limited. It is then necessary to make a concerted effort to increase parent s involvement in schools through collaboration with different entities such as schools, parents, government and non-governmental organizations