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CHAPTER THREE REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCES OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN ETHIOPIA
INTRODUCTION
In the theoretical framework chapter of this study, diverse types of parental involvement theories were discussed, giving an overview of the presence of parental involvement. Parental involvement is a vital exercise that has to be promoted to support tutors, children and even families to obtaining quality education and standards. In addition, the earlier chapter explored how schools, parents and the population can work jointly and how this can be continued so that they can participate in the schooling of their children both at home and at school.
In this chapter, the challenges and opportunities of elementary schools in Ethiopia are discussed regarding parental involvement. As Lemmer and Van Wyk (2004: 260) echo, the issue of how parental involvement can be achieved, why to involve them in primary schools’ governance, the number of power parents should have, and other activities in school have been discussed throughout the study. According to Monadjem (2003:20), the existence of parental involvement in schools reproduces countrywide experiences of school leaders, political ideology and how schools move towards educational theory. In planning an effective programme for parents’ involvement, the Ethiopian tradition and schooling evolution scheme, demands how parental involvement in different periods of modern education has been conceived and practised (at the Imperial regime, Dergue Regime and current period: EPRDF). This is discussed further later on in the chapter.
Looking into forms, challenges, approaches and effects of parental involvement in children’s schools helps the perceptive of the concepts of parental involvement and the dynamics of community participation in primary schools’ management in the zone. Since education cannot exist without parental involvement in educational activities, the researcher believes that looking at the practice in the respective Woredas guided the analysis and discussion of parental involvement in their children’s schooling in position to its practice in five Woredas or districts in the study area. These are Wara-Jarso, Kuyu, Degem, Grar-Jarso, and Wachalle Woredas or districts of Oromiya National Regional State North Shoa Zone, Ethiopia. Therefore, this chapter looks at the experiences of parental involvement in their children’s schooling system, particularly in managing primary schools in Oromiya, Ethiopia.
THE ETHIOPIAN EDUCATION AS A WHOLE
Historical overview of the Ethiopian education
A comprehensive examination of the origins and progress of Ethiopian schooling may provide some input for this study. However, discussing a brief evolution of primary schools and its universal quality can serve as ground information to the problems of parental involvement for the management of primary schools in Ethiopia, as a whole and Oromiya in particular. Historically, Ethiopia has an extended and rich history of traditional learning. As Wagaw (1979: 10) states, traditional learning or education in Ethiopia was an enduring course and gradually brought improvement from one age to another age and from generation to generation. The older people were associated with understanding that the seniors were the magazine of knowledge in their communities. Unquestionably, traditional Ethiopian education was effective, practical and relevant to priests and Deacons in their everyday life when serving churches (Wagaw, 1979:11-12).
Traditionally, education in Ethiopia was indigenous and religious. As Wagaw (1979:77) avers, the major objective of religious education was to respond to the existing challenges of the then societies (peasant and lords) and to politicise and influence ordinary farmers in the then society. In Ethiopia, religious education was to familiarise the citizens with spiritual education after World War II when the administration started to highlight modern education for income generation to advance community changes and national development. Moving to the early 1900s, official learning was highly limited to a scheme of spiritual commands system and fell under the ownership of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (Dhuferra, 2002:60). In the history of Ethiopian education, another constituent of learning in the country was under the control of Islam or Islamic institutions. Arab traditions and beliefs were taken on in much of southeast Ethiopia and they intensively arranged non-formal schools that were well known for advancing the beliefs and religious studies of Islam (Wagaw, 1979:59-60).
The Islamic education was designed in the form of imparting skills and knowledge of the religious realm within the system, emphasising on the interpretation and recital of Arabic. Similar to the church, the mosque in the Muslim areas had an equivalent meaning in promoting Quranic schools when they opened from the 7th century in Ethiopia. The church schools and the Quranic schools were upheld by the restricted group themselves and there was no external support of any kind (Markokis, 1994:154). Personal characteristics were dissatisfied in the place where learning intended to create a common understanding and incorporate students into the large social group. Casual means were significant in conventional civilisation (Ngaroga, 2006:77). In both church and Quranic schools, people desired to realise and nurture the learners to become reliable people who could take over any social responsibility.
As Wagaw (1979:20) identifies, very few formal schools were present during the Minilik II era in Ethiopia. Because of this in some areas of the country, there were specific teachers who were selected and hired to guide children in regular schooling arrangements. Furthermore, Wagaw makes two critical remarks about the perseverance and vanishing of customary education in Ethiopia. European education controls and displaced indigenous education entirely from Ethiopian societies, and one cannot find general Ethiopian or African education in its innovative form at present (ibid). In this case, the amount of difference or perseverance, however, differs from one zone to another. Customary Ethiopian learning was, therefore, obviously overshadowed by the education that a child received within the home and the large society. Wagaw (1979:23) comments that although untainted traditional learning has been eroded, it has not entirely diminished and given way to modern western schooling. Therefore, modern Ethiopian education is not optional; those customary and European forms of learning are not included and must be mandatory for realising educated and trained citizen. As the result of this and other reasons, the introduction of modern education in Ethiopia was realised. Contemporary learning in Ethiopia was the result of the situation in the nation as the arrival of foreign embassies, organisations of a middle government power and lasting city chair of authority and development of contemporary financial sector situations where the aim circumstances that called for contemporary schooling in Ethiopia.
Following other sectors in development as education, modern schools set up a foundation during the early 20th century, owing to the powers of Emperor Minilik and Ethiopian academicians or scholars who had just returned from overseas. An announcement issued by this also encouraged people to provide further emphasis to modern education. Blaten GetaMahteme Selassie Wolde Meskel (1962:60) made a proclamation, which provided grounds for extending current learning in Ethiopia, in 1898. Following this proclamation, the current education in the country legitimately begun in1908 with the inaugurating of Minilik II School in Addis Ababa. The opening of the first modern school marked a heavy footstep in the history of learning in Ethiopia.
Almost immediately after, Minilik opened three more schools, one in the east of the country Harar, northern part called Dessie and Ankober. Subsequently, the local governors of that time also opened schools in the southern part called Yirgalem, in the western part called Gore and Harar. Moreover, there was a challenge because of the resistance of the feudal system and development was very sluggish. However, since the emphasis was on accessing education, parental involvement in education was not given attention ( Shibesh, 1989:34). To sum up this section, however, the then regime tried to expand education; the system did not help to address access and achieve particular outcomes. The system was more advantageous to the clergies and feudalists.
MODERN EDUCATION AND ITS INTRODUCTION IN ETHIOPIA
Education in Ethiopia during Minilik era since 1908-1913
The period of European missionaries initially set up European schooling in Africa as Wagaw (1984:67) explains, “Missionaries did not use African teachers, rather they brought their teachers with their education.” This author states that the missionaries had a slight start of the logic of learning, connecting literacy with schooling and seperating it from it from pockets of Arabic literacy schooling (Wagaw, 1984:68). In addition, Wagaw maintains that “in the area of horn and coastal African missionary instructors, there was no education which motivated the need for the modern education’s existence among Africans” (1984:69). The emergence of the country as victorious over the Italians in the Battle of Adewa towards the end of the 19th century heralded a promise of a new Ethiopia; the country gained international recognition. These resulted in several Europeans and Asian countries expressing their interests to establish their embassies. They negotiated by signing different treaties. On the contrary, the war itself gave some visionary lesson for Emperor Minilik to understand how cathedral schooling in Ethiopia could not bolster self-governing and the mandatory shift to modern education.
As Pankhurst (1962:256) reports, upon his return to the capital victoriously from the battle of Adewa, the Emperor stated: “my country needs literate citizens to make sure the country is peaceful and to construct our state and to allow it to survive as a huge country in the description of western power.” The Minilik government supported the benefits of modern education when it established the first schooling announcement in 1906. The proclamation read, “As of nowadays all seven year aged boys and girls should be present at learning centres”. As for family that do not send their children to school, when they die, their prosperity, instead of being handed over to their child, will be transferred to the administration. The Emperor promised the citizens that his administration would prepare the school and the tutor to be ready for children’s schooling” (Shibesh, 1989:35). The problem encountered in this newly emerging schooling process was that the contemporary school organisation was under the state by evangelicals around the nineteenth century. The first current public school was constructed in the capital city, Addis Ababa, by Emperor Minilik in 1908. Additional schools were constructed in different regions and regional cities by Emperor Haile Selassie and the succeeding government (Nekatibeb, 2012).
Education in Ethiopia during Haile Selassie since 1923-1974
Education during the Italian occupation (1936-1942)
As Wagaw (1979:40-42) indicated in his review in 1936 when fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia, a number of students and schools were few and only about 21 public schools and only 4200 students in the country. Historically, the Italian occupation (1936-1941) highly deteriorated the Ethiopian schooling system that had just begun to become visible. However, the Italian invasion did not only lower the Ethiopian standard of education. In terms workforce, the few pre-war intellectual young people were purposefully and methodically massacred by the fascist invader, and the teaching-learning structure had to commence from a scrape when the state was unconventional in 1941. In this regard, the Ministry of Education founded in 1942, with decree No. 3 of (1944), made for the first time the Ethiopian government invited the missionaries (Shibesh, 1989:33). To participate in providing educational services in 1974, there were 879 primary schools with five thousand pupils and 24 secondary schools with 3846 pupils (MOE, 2010:26).
Postwar Education in the country since 1942-1974 (Expansion period)
The “4+4+ 4” school system Emperor Haile Selassie 1942-1964 which changed to 6+2+4 school structure in (1972-74) has been implemented as a sensible programme at all levels. This structure holds six years in first cycle primary school, two years in junior secondary schools, four years in general secondary schools and four years least amount at university education (Tekeste, 1999:8-9). Furthermore, insignificant educational developments have been attained “regarding schools, the figure of teachers and learners and lower level learning institutions since the overthrow of the regime 1974”. The first post-war schools were opened in Ethiopian in 1942, and there were critical problems in a shortage of teachers and other teaching-learning materials like textbooks, although some British staff from the British Council was obtainable to the administration.
The primary concern at this period was the formation of schooling structure that could offer for a small group of secretarial, operational and managerial workers to run the administration machinery (Tekest, 1999:9). To meet this re-facilitation works start on with the reinstatement of the Ministry of Education in 1942. To attain efficient educational development, the advantage of education was recognised in each district and to run the programme educational tax was introduced to finance education partly. The government tries to strengthen administration efforts at all level by doing, confidential and unpaid association were confident to release schools with decree No. 3 of (1944), made to manage their performance. The European and other countries evangelicals were also, for the first time, legitimately requested to donate in as long as scholastics forces in the country ( Shibeshi, 1989:33).
As many scholars explain, Ethiopian administration was occupied with promoting and developing the educational system from 1942 to 1955. The government sustained to consider that learning supposed to be the key to Ethiopia’s progress. Budget allocation from education sector relation the whole spending was high, as well as the high number of scholar staffing leftovers robust observer to the attention and promise of the Ethiopian administration to the spreading out of schooling. According to Edward J. (1968:115) during this period the second uppermost item in the national state budget was the educational budget. Expenditure on education increases from just over half a million Birr in 1942 to over 19 million Birr by (1958/59) of the country budget by (1959/60). During this period, the enrolment in government schools had reached nearly a quarter of a million pupils (Ethiopian Observer, 5:1; 1961:16). However, with all these governmental efforts parental involvement was left imperfect. The researcher assumes that access to education has increased more during Haile Selassie
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER
1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
1.4 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
1.5 AIMS OF THE STUDY
1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.7 OBJECTIVES OF THIS STUDY
1.8 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
1.9 MOTIVATION
1.10 RATIONALE FOR CONDUCTING THIS RESEARCH
1.11 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS
1.12 RESEARCH PARADIGM
1.13 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
1.14 RESEARCH DESIGN
1.15 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT
1.16 RESEARCH SITE
1.18 ETHICAL ISSUES
1.19 CLARIFICATION OF CONCEPTS
1.20 ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY .
CHAPTER TWO CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK THEORIES AND PRACTICE OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
2.1 INTRODUCTION.
2.2 THEORETICAL POSITION OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS
CHAPTER 3 EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCES OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN ETHIOPIA
3.1 INTRODUCTION .
3.2 THE ETHIOPIAN EDUCATION AS A WHOLE
3.3 MODERN EDUCATION AND ITS INTRODUCTION IN ETHIOPIA
3.4 SOCIO-ECONOMIC BACKGROUND OF THE COUNTRY
3.5 EXPERIENCES OF PARENT INVOLVEMENT AND PRIMARY EDUCATION IN ETHIOPIA
3.6 EDUCATION AND ITS POLICY PROGRESSES IN ETHIOPIA
3.7 PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT POLICY IN ETHIOPIA’S EDUCATION
3.8 LIMITS OF CURRENT ETHIOPIA’S PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT POLICY IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS
3.9 EXPERIENCES OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
3.10 ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN THE ETHIOPIAN EDUCATION SECTOR
3.11 CURRENT SITUATION IN THE ETHIOPIAN EDUCATION SECTOR
3.12 WAYS OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
3.13 PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
3.14 PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
3.15 PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT VERSUS LEARNERS’ ACHIEVEMENT
3.16 CHALLENGES OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF OROMIYA, ETHIOPIA
3.17 OPPORTUNITIES FOR PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
3.18 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER FOUR RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 RECAP OF RESEARCH CHALLENGES
4.3 RECAP OF MAIN RESEARCH QUESTIONS
4.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: QUALITATIVE APPROACH
4.5 RESEARCH DESIGN
4.6 RESEARCH SETTING
4.7 METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION
4.8 POPULATION AND SAMPLING
4.9 SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS
4.10 CONDUCTING THE FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSIONS
4.11 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION PROCEDURES
4.12 TRUSTWORTHINESS OR ISSUES OF QUALITY IN RESEARCH
4.13 RESEARCH VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
4.14 RESEARCH ETHICS
4.15 SUMMARY OF THE METHODOLOGY
4.16 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER FIVE PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH RESULTS
5.1 INTRODUCTION .
5.2 PROFILES OF PARTICIPANTS
5.3 PRESENTATION OF MAJOR FINDINGS
5.4 PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS ACCORDING TO EMERGING THEMES
5.5 CONCLUSION ON PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN MANAGING PRIMARY SCHOOLS
CHAPTER SIX SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 SUMMARY
6.3 SUMMARY OF EMPIRICAL FINDINGS
6.4 CHALLENGES FOR PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
6.5 CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY
6.6 RECOMMENDATIONS
6.7 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
6.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
6.9 CONCLUSION
GET THE COMPLETE PROJECT
EXPERIENCES OF PARENTS’ INVOLVEMENT IN THE MANAGEMENT OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN OROMIYA NATIONAL REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA
