A comparative study of guardians'/parents' involvement into orphaned and non-orphaned children's education in Mongu District

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare parental involvement to guardian involvement in nonorphaned and orphaned children’s education respectively. This involvement was looked at from two perspectives: involvement levels of parents/guardians through their own self-evaluation measured against what their own children perceived about them. Whether or not there was a significant difference in involvement between parents and guardians, was the hypothesis that was tested. A sample size of 313 respondents was used: Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 180 learners (orphaned and non-orphaned) and 120 parents/guardians. Some parents/guardians, 8 teachers and 5 Head teachers were subjected to structured interviews. Mongu district was used as a study site. Simple random and purposive sampling types were used to select samples. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Friedman’s Repeated Measures Test was used to run inferential statistics. The findings of the study revealed that although generally both parents and guardians were lowly involved, parents who kept their own biological children were more involved than the guardians who took care of the orphaned children. The study also found out that female parents/guardians were more involved at household level than their male counterparts. For instance, females were more involved with checking books/homework/school report, more involved with motivating their children through giving them praise, encouragement and monitoring learning progress in order to help solve school related problems. The learners on the other hand reported their male parents/guardians to have been more involved in outdoor involvement activities such as attendance at Parent Teacher Association Meetings (PTAMs) and Annual General Meetings (AGMs). The study concluded that despite these variations in involvement between parents and guardians, these variations were statistically insignificant at probability alpha level 0.05. The main reason for this insignificance was that to do with homogeneity among parents/guardians within rural communities on economic and educational fronts. There was no much difference in involvement between parents and guardians living in communities where poverty and illiteracy levels were almost even within the population. Therefore, the study recommends that policies, programmes and interventions that are aimed at giving impetus to households, schools and communities to improve learning opportunities of children, be strengthened.