Parents’ involvement in children education and pupils’ academic performance: a case of selected primary schools in Ndorwa county, Kabale district, Uganda

Abstract

The study sought to establish the influence of Parents’ Involvement in Children Education and Pupils’ Academic Performance: a case of selected primary schools in Ndorwa County, Kabale District, Uganda. The principal researcher is Evangelist Kahunzire, a PhD scholar at Nkumba University-Uganda. She was guided by Prof. Solomon Muchwa Asiimwe, and Dr. Frank Pio Kiyingi. The study aimed at developing a parental involvement school partnership model. The study assessed the influence of parents’ provision of academic support resources and pupils’ academic performance; examined the relationship between parents’ attendance of school meetings and pupils ‘academic performance; presented the influence of parents’ communication with teachers and academic performance. The primary data were collected using questionnaires, interview guide and focus group discussion. Secondary data were obtained from reports, text books and journals. The study used cross sectional survey design to collect and analyse both qualitative and quantitative data. A sample size of 322 was derived from a population of 2000 using simple random and purposive sampling techniques. Collected data were analysed in form of frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations. Qualitative data was analyzed using content and thematic analysis. Descriptive statistics were used in presentation of findings. The results showed that pupils of highly involved family members significantly outperformed those with family members who were not involved based on scores of the PLE for class 7. The study also revealed that parental involvement had a positive relationship on children education and pupils’ academic performance. Non-attendance of school meetings is attested at 155/313(50%) while a failure rate is desperate. In 2018 was desperate (Div III 9; Div IV 45; Div U 46). The parents’ low income and negative attitude towards education were the main challenges. About 54% and 64% of boys and girls respectively dropout of school in class 6 or transfer to other schools occasioned by parents’ low income and child labour. Further, the results also indicated that parents’ supervision had a moderate positive but significant (correlation of 0.856 at a significant level of 0.64) relationship with children education and academic performance. The study concluded that, the three practices; parents’ provision of academic support resources, parents’ attendance of school meetings and parents’ communication with teachers had strong significant and predicted the level of pupils’ academic performance. In order to reduce pupils’ unpromising academic performance, the study recommended that, parents’ involvement in conjunction with pupils’ academic performance, government of Uganda should create policies that ensure the implementation of parental involvement benefits, building of schools, family and community partnership programs to empower parents and support their children’s learning. The practice of parents’ involvement in pupils’ studies need to be in tandem with deliberations from the ministry of education policies, district education regulations and schools’ administration directives. Parents need to check what they aid to pupils with schools’ advice. Deliberations from the PTA meetings need to be executed subsequently, and corresponding evaluations affirmatively. Further research is needed on the aspect of parents’ involvement with students in lower primary school. It is imperative to find out how parents can adhere to schools’ management directives and the ministry of education in fostering collaboration between parents and teachers in supporting pupils in their studies.