Influence of parental involvement in the implementation of curriculum in public primary schools in Ndeiya zone, Kiambu county, Kenya.

Abstract

Parents educational aspirations for their children and educational involvement of both mothers and fathers are linked to their children‘s and adolescents improved activities to school, better academic outcome and emotional adjustment. Thus this study sought to determine the influence of parental involvement in the implementation of curriculum in public primary schools in Ndeiya zone Kiambu County. It was guided by the following objectives: to access the extent to which parents supervision of homework, parent’s participation in school functions, home chores assigned to pupils by parents, availability of physical facilities provided at home by parents influence curriculum implementation in public primary school in Ndeiya zone. The research adopted a descriptive survey design. This was suitable for this study as it helped the researcher establish the existing conditions at home. It further allowed identification of standards or norms with which to compare the parental involvement. This eventually impacts curriculum implementation. The target population was 265 teachers, 1245 pupils and 805 parents within the study area. A sample of 81 parents, 54 teachers and 126 pupils were selected through simple random sampling. A pilot study was carried out on a different set of respondents to better plan for the research. The test-retest procedure was used for testing reliability Teachers questionnaire yielded a reliability of 0.76 whereas pupils questionnaires yielded a reliability of 0.72 this was considered favorable to warrant reliance on the data collected and its findings. Qualitative and quantitative data was obtained through questionnaires. This was further analyzed and presented through narratives, tables and graphs. The study revealed that the sorry state of education standards at Ndeiya Zone mainly attributed to the fact that there was little parental involvement. This is a major challenge because parents invest a lot in education and as such need to take more interest in curriculum implementation to improve the performance in national examinations. It was clear that the lack of involvement of parents in school activities hinders efforts to actualize the curriculum. This in-turn leads to poor performance. The study recommends the involvement of parents in all aspects of the curriculum implementation.