Teacher-parent partnership and academic performance in Rwandan primary schools

Abstract

Academic performance of students is an issue which is alarming educationists. In Huye District, especially in Public Primary Schools, low academic performance has been noticed. This study aimed at investigating the impact of teacher – parent’s partnership on the academic performance of pupils in Public Primary Schools. This study will be useful because the results and recommendations shall contribute in improving the partnership between teachers and parents, with the expectation that students’ performance will increase. Specifically, the study was intended to achieve the following objectives: to assess the level of partnership between parents and teachers in Public Primary Schools of Huye District; to find out the barriers to teacher – parent’s partnership in Public Primary Schools of Huye District and to investigate on the impact of teacher – parent’s partnership on pupils’ performance in Public Primary Schools of Huye District . The study adopted the quantitative and qualitative approaches of data collection and analysis where questionnaires were the main data collection instruments. Stratified random sampling, simple random sampling and purposive sampling were the sampling techniques used to select sample from the target population. A total of 113 respondents constituted the sample of the study. These included 23 teachers and 90 parents. The collected data from the sample were treated using SPSS software (16th version), where frequencies, percentages and charts were used to present and analyze data. The findings have revealed a poor partnership between teachers and parents in Public Primary schools of Huye District and respondents have agreed at a high percentage that a strong partnership between parents and teachers increase pupils’ academic performance; they agreed however that a weak partnership decrease pupils’ academic performance. The non- attendance of parents at school when they are invited by teachers; the great number of pupils; the lack of knowledge about what children learn at school; the lack of time and priorities given to other activities than monitoring learning of children were identified as main barriers to teachers and parents’ partnership. It has been recommended to the District Education Officers and Sector Educational Officers to organize frequent meetings through which parents would be sensitized on the importance of their continued involvement in educational matter of their children. School administrators and teachers should develop school and parents’ partnership programs. Government and local authorities should develop guidelines and policies to encourage and support family-school partnership’s programs. Head teachers and teachers should organize meetings with parents during the time corresponding to parents’ availability. Children should also be included in the parents-school connection and be kept aware of their own progress and of action needed to improve their learning outcomes.