The impact of parental involvement in the education of the child and life- long learning in Nigeria (2)

Intervention programmes for parental involvement

The Institute for Work and Family Integration (IWFI) has over the years, engaged with schools, in their efforts to ensure greater parental involvement in their child’s education. Accordingly, these schools usually adopt a three prong approach;

1. First is the family orientation program championed by the National Association for Family Advancement (NAFAD). The IWFI collaborate with the NAFAD in the training of facilitators who gives the family orientation program which is compulsory for the parents, of every intending student in the respective schools. This program enables parent to understand their role as the first teachers and responsibility in ensuring the right outcome.
2. The schools encourage the parents to participate in the family leadership or enrichment programmes, which trains parents as trainers to be able to train their children in virtues, and ensure that the school’s efforts complement the training of students in virtues, which is, training the will. Thus they can choose the good, all the time.
3. To prepare the teachers, to better engage the parents in a collaborative way in the education of their child, the IWFI offers the family advisory program, a certificate course on collaborative education and management of adolescent tendencies.

Despite the traffic and long work hours constraints, this approach have been very successful as the family orientation programme has recorded 100% parental participation, (i.e. father and mother attendance) with over 90% participation in the Family Enrichment Programmes. Similarly, the participating schools have ensured that all teachers attend a Family Advisory Programme in addition to participating in the practical and peer review sessions for enhanced teachers’ performance in dealing with parents and the management of adolescence tendencies.

While the child is the focus of the school, these programmes have also been of significant benefits to the families, helping them to give due priorities to their child in their hierarchy of values, while growing in virtues, as they learn and teach their child at home.

Accordingly, the child effectively has a conducive atmosphere for learning and development, as the school and the family collaborate and complement the efforts of each other. Furthermore, with the leadership programme, parents and the child bond more because it is joint exercise, where parents and child learn and share experience in their efforts to habitually practice same acts and grow in virtues. This strengthens the self-confidence and self-determination of the child, an attribute for life-long learning.

3. Performance result from WAEC SSS examination

The impact of the above programme; parental involvement in the education of their child becomes more obvious when one takes a cursory look at the published performance results by the West African Examination Council for the Senior Secondary Schools examinations over the last ten (10) years, that is, between 2006 and 2015. As the data show, on the average, only about 25.63% of participating candidates in the examinations, achieve the minimum results for graduation; that is five credits, including English and Mathematics.

A further reflection on the improvement from below 10% success recorded in 2006 and 2007 to over 20% from 2009 suggest it may be attributable to the return of schools, confiscated under the military era, to their owners, and the advent of privately owned secondary schools in the country.

These results however peel when compared with the results from schools with significant programmes for parental involvement in child education. Specifically when we look at the schools with programmes for parental involvement, we see significantly better results, with an average graduation rate, of about 92% amongst participating students in the same Senior Secondary School examinations, with at least five credits, including Mathematics and English.

While recognizing the significantly above average facilities in these schools, one cannot but attribute the nearly four-fold, graduation rate in these schools, to parental involvement.

This conclusion is corroborated by a number of scientific studies on the impact of parental involvement in education of the child and lifelong learning. For example the study by Steinberg, 1996, concludes “When parents are engaged in their children’s schooling, students get better grades, score higher on standardized tests, have better attendance records, drop out less often, have higher career aspirations, and hold more positive attitudes toward school and homework.”

The behavioural traits predicted in the above study, in the US, is also prevalent in the students from schools with parental involvement in the Lagos study; with regard to career aspiration and positive attitudes. Interviews with principals of these schools affirm that most of their graduates, gain admission into the best universities in the country and around the world; indeed a number of them win scholarships to Ivy League universities.

On the contrary, students with less parental involvement are more likely to have behavioural problems as reported in the Lagos study by Dr. Eugene Ohu, etc. This conclusion is consistent with the study on child behaviour by Hinshaw S. P. in 1992.

Meta analytic research shows that externalized behaviour (e.g. physical and verbal aggression, defiance, etc.) were clearly related to parental involvement and academic performance.

Conclusion and recommendations

1. The implication of the current educational realities in Nigeria are ominous. With about 75% of secondary school leavers failing the WAEC Senior Secondary School Examination annually, Nigeria’s chances of achieving a sustaining optimal economic development may be jeopardized as these youths have no qualifications to pursue further studies, nor participate in lifelong learning. Furthermore, these youths unless managed and engaged in economic activities, may become easy candidates for crime, terrorism, etc.
2. Evidence confirms that parental involvement in education has very positive effect on child’s education and lifelong learning. The three prong approach highlighted above have been most effective as it creates harmony between school and family, the two critical environment for the child’s education and socialization. The programme enables better families, better educated children, who are better prepared for business and society.

Involving parents in child education if adopted, will re-enact our national values and inculcate virtues in the child and thus, stamp out corruption from the root, positioning the nation for a meaningful socio-economic development.

4. Thus it is recommended that government should take urgent necessary actions to design policies that will encourage parental involvement in the education of their child. Such policy should include provisions for the training of teachers and equip them to collaborate with parents, who are the first teachers in the education of their child.

 CHARLES A. OSEZUA

Engr. Charles A. Osezua is President, Institute for Work and Family Integration (IWFI); Chairman, Board of Trustees, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos, Nigeria.