KEY FORUMS FOR PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN BASIC EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY OF TWO RURAL SCHOOLS IN THE EFFUTU MUNICIPALITY, GHANA

Robert Andrews Ghanney

Abstract


This study explores key forums for parental involvement in two school communities in Effutu Municipality of Ghana using overlapping spheres of influence theory by Epstein (1995; 2001). There has been relatively little previous research on parental involvement in school governance in Ghana generally and in poorer rural areas in particular. Developed as a small-scale qualitative case study, focus group discussions and individual interviews were used to explore the inter-relationships between SMC parents, teaching staff and communities. The decentralised system of education delivery in Ghana assumes an important role for school management committees and the focus group discussions therefore involved community participants who were members of school management committees as well as head teachers and teachers in each of the two rural case study schools. A key finding of the study was that although the formal structures for parental engagement in school governance were in place, in practice many members of the school management committee were unable to contribute fully to school management. Tensions in school governance situations also arose from the administration of capitation grants and monitoring of teachers. The study concludes that policies designed to encourage parental involvement in school governance must reflect not only important contextual differences but also the dynamics between structures and participants.

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


school communities, parental involvement, School Management Committee (SMC), capitation grant, monitoring of teachers

Full Text:

PDF

References


Adam, F. (2005). Community Participation in School Development: Understanding Participation in Basic Schools Performance in the Nanumba District of Ghana (Unpublished thesis). University of Bergen, Norway.

Akyeampong, K., Djangmah, J., Oduro, A., Seidu, A. & Hunt, F. (2007). Access to Basic Education in Ghana: the Evidence and the Issues, CREATE Country Analytic Report. Brighton: Centre for International Education, University of Sussex.

Arnott, M. & Raab, C. (2000). The Governance of Schooling: Comparative Studies of Devolved Management: Routledge-Falmer.

Bronfenbrenner, U. & Evans, G. (2000). Developmental science in the 21st century: Emerging questions, theoretical models, research designs, and empirical findings, Social Development, 9(1), 115-125.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives. Developmental Psychology, 22(6), 723-742

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of human development: Experiment by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Casely-Hayford, L. (2002). The Social Impact of Poverty on Educational Attainment: Lessons from the North: Paper presented at the fifth International Conference on the child -Children and Poverty: The impact of our Economic, Social and Political Choices. Montreal, Canada. 23-25, May 2002.

Cohen, L., Marion, L. & Morrison, K. (2007). Research Methods in Education, London: Routledge.

Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2000). Research Methods in education (5th ed.) London and New York: Routledge Falmer.

Coleman, J. (1987). Families and Schools. Educational Researcher, 16(6), 32-38

De Grauwe, A., Lugaz, C., Balde, D., Moustapha, M. & Odushina, D. (2005). Does decentralization lead to school improvement? Findings and Lessons from research in West Africa, Journal of Education for International Development (1).

Donkor, A. (2010). Parental Involvement in Education in Ghana: The Case of a Private Elementary School. International Journal about Parents in Education, 4(1) 23-28.

Dunne, M., Akyeampong, K. and Humphreys, S. (2007). School Processes, Local Governance and Community Participation: understanding access. CREATE, Research Monograph, No. 6, London.

Edge, K., Marphatia, A., Legault, E & Acher, D. (2010). Researching Education Outcomes in Burundi, Malawi, Senegal and Uganda. Using participatory tools and collaborative approaches. London, UK: Action Aid and the Institute of Education: University of London.

Epstein, J., Coates, L., Salinas, K & Sanders, M. (2002) School, Family and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Actions, 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks, C A: Corwin Press

Epstein, J. (2001). School and Family Partnership: Preparing educators and improving schools. Boulder CO: Westview

Epstein, J. (1995). School/ Family/ Community partnerships: caring for the children we share. Phi Delta Kappan, 707-712.

Fan, A. and Chen, M. (2001). Parental Involvement and student academic achievement: a meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 13(1), 1-22.

Ghana Education Service (2001). SMC/PTA Handbook: Improving Quality Education through Community Participation.

Hill, N. and Craft, S. (2003). Parental School Involvement and School Performance. Mediated pathways among socio-economically comparable African American and Euro American Families, Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 74-83.

Holloway, S., Yamamoso, Y., Suziki, S. & Mindnich, J. (2008). Determinants of Parental involvement in Early Schooling: Evidence from Japan. Early Childhood Research and Practice. Vol 10(1) 2008. (Accessed October 20, 2014).

Jeynes, W. (2003). A meta-analysis. The effects of parental involvement on minority children’s academic achievement. Education and Urban Society, 35, 202-218.

Johnson, B. and Christenson, L. (2004). Educational research: quantitative, qualitative and mixed approaches. (2nd Ed) Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Kendall, N. (2007). Parental and Community Participation in improving Educational Quality in Africa: Current Practices and Future Possibilities. International Review of Education (53)5-6):701-708

Kingdon, G., Lutler, A., Aslan, M., Rawal, S., Moe, T., Patrinos, H., Beteille, T., Baneji, R., Parton, B. & Sharma, S. (2014). A rigorous review of the political economy of education systems in developing countries. Final Report: Department for International Development.

Mankoe, J. (2002). Educational Administration and Management in Ghana. Progressive Stars Printing Press: Madina, Accra.

McMillan, J. & Schumacher, S. (2006). Research in Education: Evidence-based inquiry. (6th ed) Boston: Pearson Education.

Nkansah, G. & Chapman, D. (2006). Sustaining Community Participation: What remains after the money ends? Review of Education (52) pp.509-532.

Pryor, J. (2005). Can community Participation Mobilise Social Capital for improvement of Rural Schooling? A case study for Ghana, Compare, 35(2), pp.193-203.

Ramani, K. and Zhimin, L. (2010). A survey on conflict resolution mechanisms in public secondary schools: A case study of Nairobi Kenya.

Robinson, M. (2007). Introduction: Decentralisation Service Delivery? Evidence and Policy Implications, IDS Bulletin, 38(1), 1-6.

Seitsinger, A, Felner, R, Brand, S. & Burns, A. (2008). A large scale examination of the nature and efficacy of teachers’ practices to engage parents: Assessments, parental contact, and student-level impact. Journal of School Psychology, 46,477-505.

Tao, S., Edge, K., Kathryn, R., Shams, K. (2008). Teacher Quality and Parental Participation: An Exploratory review of research and resources related to influencing student outcomes: London Centre for Leadership in Learning.

Watt, P. (2001). Community Support for Basic Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa Region Human Development Working Paper Series, World Bank.

World Bank (2004). Books, Buildings and Learning Outcomes: An impact Evaluation of World Bank Support to Basic Education in Ghana. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Yin, R. (2009). Case Study Research: Design and Methods, London: Sage.

Yoshioka, A. (2010). Promoting Inter-Community-School Relations through the Capitation Grant in Ghana (Unpublished Thesis). University of British Columbia.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v7i12.3581

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2021 Robert Andrews Ghanney

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright © 2015-2023. European Journal of Education Studies (ISSN 2501 - 1111) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library (Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei). All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All authors who send their manuscripts to this journal and whose articles are published on this journal retain full copyright of their articles. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).