There is a wealth of international research which posits that effective parental involvement in the education of their children improves their school results and, institutionally, that schools which actively encourage parental involvement produce better educational outcomes (Edwards & Alldred, 2000; Henderson & Berla, 1994; Richardson, 2009; Sanders & Sheldon, 2009; Sheldon, 2009).
This is recognised in the South African context by the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996 which highlights that parents have an important role to play in their children’s education and provides for their participation in School Governing Bodies (SGBs) that assist the principals in school management (JET Exchanges #3 2021).
There are a range of ways in which parents can participate in the education of their children – these are well enunciated by well-renowned expert Joyce Epstein at John Hopkins University in (1) parenting; (2) communicating with teachers and the school; (3) volunteering for school activities; (4) learning at home; (5) decision-making for learners and the school; and (6) collaborating with the community.
In South Africa, a range of researchers have shown that in the rural areas, while some parental involvement does occur, it is significantly lacking. Factors cited by these researchers include "lack of finance, work commitments, poverty, illiteracy, and lack of understanding of what is required." These factors are well supported by international research which demonstrates that household self-efficacy, shared ambitions, and understanding of schooling are key determinants in effective parental involvement.
The Reading and Leadership Strengthening in South African Schools for Learning during and after COVID (REALS) programme currently being run under the auspices of DBE and the Provincial Education Departments in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KZN has a very significant parental component.
This programme is funded by the EU with UNICEF and the NECT as project managers and is being implemented by service providers including the University of KZN, University of Tshwane, and Performance Solutions Africa (PSA). It's theory of change is based on the following:
The REALs project covers 650 schools across the three Provinces and the parental component involves SGBs from these schools reaching out to other parents to extend their involvement in reading support for their children in the home situation. This is being undertaken through SGB workshops with clusters of schools where SGB members and parents are being taken through reading support material prepared by the NECT. These same SGB members, with the school principal, will then arrange further engagements with 300 other parents at the school and, in this way, target 195 000 parents across the country.
This part of the programme is currently underway and, at this point, a number of observations and lessons have stood out:
1. Level of engagement between schools and parents
The graph for three Provinces shows that Parental Communication scored the lowest of all practices in the baseline assessments that were conducted at the 650 schools - this, inter alia, means that in the majority of schools, the frequency of communication between the school and parents is less than once a term.
2. Remoteness of Schools
Interestingly, the remoteness of the schools (and there are a very large number of deep rural schools) appears to have no relationship to the eagerness to participate in the programme – in fact, indications are that the 'remoteness’ might have a positive correlation to participation.
3. Parental Categorisation
Involvement in the programme has often involved ‘caregivers’ rather than parents, which points to a more complex structure in rural households where roles might be shared across a number of family members who each play a differentiated role in relation to younger children. This carries a number of positive possibilities, especially in relation to younger caregivers.
It is still too early to make any definitive findings from the work being undertaken and this will need to involve all the DBE and all the partners, but research undertaken by JET does suggest that if parental engagement is to be harnessed then schools need to be developed as key ‘nodes’ or ‘hubs’ within rural communities with functions that extend to involving activities such as food gardens, sports centres, Wifi hotspots, community meetings, adult skills training, etc.
This will, of course, involve a major restructuring of the current reality where we have evidence that many rural schools, especially smaller ones, are managed in ‘lock up and go’ mode—in these cases, school operations conclude after lunch, teachers and SMTs leave for metropolitan centres, and schools stand idle for a significant part of their "available hours".
School connectivity, new Education 4.0 management skills around collaboration, customer service, and critical thinking, together with change in the way in which schools are evaluated and in which school management teams are rewarded, will be important parts of this rethinking.
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