Ensuring Quality Early Childhood Education Provision: The Indispensable Role of Parents in the Effutu Municipality of Ghana (Published)

There is a notion that children are the hope of the future of a society. This has led to Early Childhood Education becoming the focus of debate at all levels of government. However, the benefits emanating from Early Childhood Education cannot be realized on its own without a key component of the indispensable role parents play. Consequently, this ethnographic research employed a focus group interview to collect data from 14 participants from the Effutu Municipality to answer the research questions formulated to guide the study. The study found that if parents actively involve themselves in the education of their children, it can build a rapport between them and the school to be informed about what goes on in the school about their children so they can continue at home. This can increase their children’s happiness at school, and possibly encourage them to participate in school activities. However, the study found that the parents were faced with challenges ranging from financial constraint and their lack of education to wrongly prioritizing their children’s education which potentially prevented them from living up to their parental expectation. From the findings, it is recommended that parents should re-orient their perception and attitude towards early childhood education and consider it to be a critical stage in their children’s educational ladder and subsequent general development as human beings. They should also visit their children’s schools whenever need be, and they should have time for their children and be interested in their education.

Keywords: Early Childhood Education, Parents, Provision, Quality, Role

Influence of Demographic Factors on Inter-Parental Conflict in Ruiru Sub-County Kiambu County Kenya (Published)

This paper analyses demographic factors that influence inter-parental conflict in Ruiru Sub-county, Kenya. The demographic factors include parental level of education, parental occupation, and age at marriage.  The paper is drawn from a study that was undertaken in Ruiru Sub-county, Kiambu County in Kenya seeking to examine the effect of inter-parental conflict on academic achievement motivation among form three students. This paper thus makes reference to both the children’s and parents’ perceptions of how these factors influence inter-parental conflict. Guided by Abraham Maslow’s Hierachy of needs theory and Martin Selgman’s Learned Helplessness Theory, the study adopts a mixed method research design targeting form three students in the 31 public and private secondary schools in Ruiru Sub-county and their parents. A total of 281 randomly sampled students and 10 participated in the study through a Children Perception of Inter-parental Conflict Questionnaire (CPIC) and Focus Group Discussion Protocol for the selected parents. Data analysis was done both descriptively and using inferential statistics. These demographics factors were found to influence inter-parental conflict at different levels and therefore a recommendation was made that parents make effort to manage and resolve conflict before it escalates into hostilities and violence.

Keywords: Academic, County, Demographic Factors, Inter-Parental Conflict, Parents, Students

Impact of Non-Payment of School Levies by Parents on Secondary School Programmes and Projects in Ainabkoi Sub-County, Uasin-Gishu County, Kenya (Published)

Service delivery in educational institutions is entirely dependent on financing. In Kenya, public secondary school education services are financially supported by both government subsidy and parents’ payment of minimal levies. This study focused on the role of parents in payment of school levies. The study sought to establish effects of non-payment of school levies by parents on service delivery in selected public secondary schools. Based on the study, this paper examines the influence of non-payments of school levies by parents on school programmes and projects. The study utilized descriptive survey research design. It targeted 31 public secondary schools in Ainabkoi Sub-County of Uasin Gishu County. A total of 18 public secondary schools were sampled using stratified random sampling. All of the schools’ principals (18) and bursars (18) were sampled purposively. The research data was then collected using open-ended interview schedule and document analysis methods. The quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics (tables, frequencies, percentages and graphs) with the help of SPSS (Statistical package for the social Sciences version 20 for Windows) program. From the interviews, the study established that non-payment of school levies by parents negatively affected educational programmes and school projects. Document analysis also indicated that all the schools had arrears of unpaid levies by parents across the three years from 2012-2014. It was therefore concluded that non-payment of school levies was a critical threat to school programmes and school projects. In accordance with these research results, the schools, the Ministry of Education and other sponsors of education in secondary schools should enforce school fees payment regulations. Moreover, parents should be sensitized on the importance of paying school levies on time. Similarly, future researchers should consider modalities of levy payment, for better service delivery.

Keywords: Non-Payment, Parents, School Levies, Secondary School Programmes