Effects of Home - Based Parental Involvement Practices in Promoting Quality of Education in Public Day Secondary Schools in Igembe Sub County, Meru County - Kenya

Universally, institutions of learning are charged with the task of producing quality human resource which can adapt to the ever-changing global environments. Secondary schools provide the youth with opportunities to acquire human capital that enable them to pursue higher education and also improve their knowledge and skills. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of home - based parental involvement practices in promoting quality of education in public day secondary schools in Igembe Central Sub County, Meru County- Kenya. Convergent design was used. This study comprised 28 principals, 266 teachers, 6912 students and 144 parents’ representatives. This made a total target population of 7312 subjects from the public day secondary schools of Igembe Central Sub County. Out of this target population, a sample of 8 principals, 48 teachers, 32 parents and 352 students, making a total of 440 subjects, was drawn using both probability and non-probability sampling procedures. The researcher collected both qualitative and quantitative data using interview schedules for principals, questionnaires for teachers’ and students’, parents’ focus group discussions and document analysis guide. The results obtained led to the conclusion that improving home based involvement of the parents can lead to improvement in children’s school attendance, homework completion, improved learning behaviors and even better learner’s discipline. This indicates that parents’ involvement in education of their children at home is a powerful force in enhancing the quality of education offered in public day secondary schools. The study recommends that parents be enlightened on the home-based activities that either directly or indirectly affect the quality of education that their children receive so that they may know how to invest their energies and resources to improve education in their children’s schools. It was also recommended that parents should monitor their children’s security in addition to the improvement of home- school relationships