Parental involvement and students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Pallisa District, Uganda

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of parental involvement on students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Pallisa District, Uganda. The objectives that guided the study were; to investigate the relationship between parents’ participation in school meetings and students’ academic performance, to assess how parents’ payment of facilitation fee influences students’ academic performance, to examine the influence of parents’ provision of scholastic materials on students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Pallisa District. The study was designed as cross sectional survey based on both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The population sample was four hundred sixty three respondents (Head teachers, deputy head teachers, Board of Governors, teachers, students and Ministry of Education Officials. The sampling techniques used were simple random sampling. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings of the study were; parents did not attend meetings effectively and this affected the students’ performance, students’ facilitation fee was not paid on time hence affecting the students’ performance and parents did not equip the students with relevant or enough teaching and learning materials. In conclusions there was minimal parental support towards the students’ academic performance in the areas of attending school meetings, paying facilitation fee and provision of learning and teaching materials. The recommendations of the study were; that there should be strict measures from the government and Board of governors on to parents who seem not support their children, design boosting and intergenerational educative programs that help parents to participate in school like having a day parents too, sit in class with students.