Role Of Parental and Community Participation in the Effective Management of Primary Schools

Abstract

The effective management of primary schools is greatly enhanced by parental/community involvement in school administration, support and educational programs. The current research explores the levels of parental and community engagement, its role in school accountability, student attendance, learning, and school development. It also highlights the key challenges to stakeholder engagement. The study used quantitative descriptive and analytical research design and the sample consisted of 200 respondents which comprised of parents/guardians, teachers, School Management Committee members and community representatives. Frequencies, percentages, mean scores and standard deviations are used to analyse data. These results revealed that home monitoring of children's learning was the most common way in which children's learning was engaged, with 55% of respondents indicating frequent involvement in home monitoring, and 45% reporting that they were involved in parent-teacher meetings. The highest perceived contribution score is given to school accountability (4.20) and the lowest score is given to school development and resource mobilization (3.85). Lack of awareness (35%) was the top barrier and was followed by work related and time constraints (32.5%). The study concludes that if parents and community are involved in the process of good enough, good accountability, communication and school management can be developed. These relationships could be explored further in future studies between schools from various geographical regions and various school types, with verified survey data and objective school performance data.