Research across the world shows that involved parents enhance children’s achievement. This also increases the resources available to children, teachers, parents and the school, and often leads to collaboration with businesses within the community.
It is against this backdrop that Unisa’s Centre for Community Training and Development has introduced a pioneering, short-learning programme in parent involvement.
Targeting teachers, principals, members of school governing bodies and parents, Professor Eleanor Lemmer believes the ‘very practical” course will enable students to implement or improve parental involvement at schools. ‘This is the only one of its kind in South Africa. In fact, there are very few similar courses in the world,” she said.
‘Few schools have a policy of parent involvement and parent practices are limited to paying school fees, acting as audiences to school events and assisting with catering and fund-raising. Many teachers also struggle to accept and welcome parents as equal partners”, says Lemmer.
Furthermore, adds Lemmer, schools often feel inadequate when they are faced with getting parents from disadvantaged communities involved because they are intimidated by the challenges of poverty, rural and urban, different family types and the pressures faced by modern families.
But such is the importance of parental involvement that in the United States, for example, the government provides federal funding as a financial incentive for parents to get involved in schools because it improves academic achievement.
Moreover, adds Lemmer, very few teacher-education programmes in this country and in other parts of the world incorporate dedicated and focused attention to training for parent involvement.
Registration for the course closes on March 31. Call Tel: (012) 429 4739 or (012) 429 4817/4511 for more details