Parental involvement as a strategic tool to improve the culture of teaching and learning in the township schools

Abstract

Since the advent of democracy in 1994, social changes in South Africa have impacted on schools. In the past, parent involvement in the township schools was viewed as unimportant. However, with the change to a democratic South Africa, parents as critical stakeholders were put under tremendous pressure to get involved in the education of their children. The role that parents are expected to play in education has grown immensely and has been receiving greater interest. The South African Schools Act (Act no. 84 of 1996) makes provision for parents‟ participation in the activities of the schools. The underlying principle is to ensure that parents are actively involved in the governance and management of schools with a view to create a conducive environment for a better teaching and learning. According to Bloch (2009:22) the more parents are involved in their children‟s schooling the better their children‟s academic achievements, the more confident their attitudes to schooling and the lower the drop-out rate. However, the parents in the township schools in South Africa have dismally failed to live up to these expectations. Almost 80% of dysfunctional schools in South Africa are predominantly located in the townships (Smit & Oosthuizen, 2011:64). These schools are ineffective and inefficient; and lack of parental involvement has been cited as a key reason for the decline of academic achievement. Efforts to improve the culture of teaching and learning in these schools have failed. In this study, the extent to which parents in the township schools are involved in the education of their children is interrogated as the focus area. Similarly, the objective of this study is to investigate and evaluate the factors that influence or inhibit parents‟ participation in the education of their children in the township schools. The study confined itself to three secondary schools in Ekurhuleni North district and used both educators and parents as its sample. The sample was purposefully selected. A mixed methodology of qualitative and quantitative approaches was used for this study. The data presented in this study are mainly derived from the responses to the ninety questionnaires that were distributed to educators as well as the responses of the six parents from the interviews with them. In this study, the ethical considerations of the research as espoused by Merriam (1998:198) were adhered to. This study v stems from the necessity to contribute to the scholarly debate on the involvement of parents in education as it seeks to determine the factors which hamper parental involvement in the education process of the learners in the township schools; and to suggest possible solutions to eliminate them wherever feasible. The reluctance of parents to participate in the education of their children in the township schools remains a mystery which needs to be unravelled. This is the basic premise of this research. The researcher further hopes that when the Findings and the Recommendations of this study are completed, they will be able to add value to the education system in the township schools by conscientising parents about their full role in the governance of the schools as mandated by legislation.