Parental participation in young children’s education is a
fundamental right and obligation. It is a family involvement process that includes the
attitudes, values and practices of parents in raising young children.Nurturing
warm, and responsive parent-child relationships in Child-centered activities
related to positive learning outcomes in early childhood. The purpose of this
study was to examine the influence of parental participation on academic
performance among children in Early Childhood Development and Education Centres
in Waldai Zone,Kericho County, Kenya. The
objectives that guided the study included; assessing the influence of
parental encouragement of their children to learn at home,on academic performance, investigating the effect of
parental guidance on academic
performance of ECD children,
examining the influence of parental communication with the school, on
children’s academic performance and establishing the effect of parental support
of educational activities on children’s performance in school.The theory that
underpinned this study was the Structural Functionalism Theory.The theory
postulates that the human society is like an organism made up of structures
known as social institutions, which are specially structured to perform various
functions on behalf of the society.The study adopted a descriptive survey
design and was carried out in Waldai zone, Kericho County.Purposive sampling
and simple random sampling were used to select participants who comprised of a
target population of 155 respondents, 35 headteachers,70 preschool teachers and
50 parents, to get the sample size of 10 headteachers, 19 preschool teachers
and 13 parents. The instruments that were used in collection of data included
use of questionnaires, interviews,documents analysis and observations.
Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.Quantitative data was
coded and analysed using the SPSS. Data was analyzed using frequencies and
percentages and presented in pie charts, tables and bar graphs. The findings
revealed that majority of the parents believed that the responsibility for
their preschool children’s learning depended on the shared participation
between them and the school. The findings also showed that there is a strong
correlation between parental monitoring of school work and performance
(0.7752). The study concluded that parental participation influences the
academic performance among children in ECDE centres and recommends the Ministry
of Education to ensure the presence of a
functional Partnership between parents and teachers as an important aspect of a
child’s academic and social achievement. Preschool teachers should be well
trained and paid so that they have the ability and time to invite parents’
participation and the knowledge to provide parents with clear strategies for
rich relationship with their children.This is done through nurturing and having
warm parent-child relationship.
Primary Language | English |
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Journal Section | Articles |
Authors | |
Publication Date | April 30, 2017 |
Submission Date | July 22, 2017 |
Published in Issue | Year 2017Volume: 3 Issue: 7 |
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