Investigation into parents’ participation in their children’s formal education in nine year basic education schools (9YBE) in Rwanda

Abstract

Nowadays, the performance of students is viewed as an outcome generated by various dynamics where the family and the school can be taken as the cornerstone of efficacious education. This is the real purpose that pushed the researcher to bring an investigation into the parents’ participation in their children’s formal education in Nine Year Basic Education schools (9YBE) in Rwanda. The study was conducted at Groupe Scolaire Cyabagarura in Musanze district where the poor performance of students in the Ordinary Level Exam of 2011 and other district tests were pointed at despite the great number of trained teachers in education found at the school being cited. This research involved various respondents including parents and their children as well as teachers in a bid to finding the root causes of the poor performance of these students. Given the nature of this study, both qualitative and quantitative methods were relied on so that the data from the involved and sampled informants could be analyzed effectively. To get this sample from each category, the researcher used the stratified systematic random sampling method. He also used the interview guide, questionnaires, observation and documentation as the approaches to deeply explore the research problem. With the help of the investigation made, our findings indicated poor parents’ participation in helping their children to perform well at school as all our results from table 1 to 6 showcased. With the view of all this research purpose, we drew the attention to various concerned people in education setting that 9YBE program and policy cannot be attained without any active collaboration of parents for encouraging and reminding their children to revise and do the school activities assigned to them by their teachers. Schools have to work hand in hand with teachers and parents for the sake of the students’ good performance