Participation in Education

INTRODUCTION

Community participation in education refers to direct or indirect parents and other community members participating from enrolling a child and financing to influencing and real decision-making that includes identification of school problems to planning, management and evaluation of the final product (Bryman, 2008). This entails decision and action to mobilize funds and other school inputs, improve student enrollment and attendance, adjusting the school calendar, and monitoring teachers attendance along with some small involvement in issues such as quality and content of classroom instruction (Colley, 2015). The term community participation is associated with empowerment, and the respect for and use of local knowledge, by the term empowerment, we simply mean the power of making decisions is lying on the power of the people.

They contributed in the Pedagogical practices and activities, there is greatest likelihood of involvement in setting the school calendar and the only pedagogy-related decision point. While the community school models seem more likely to have curriculum and learning materials developed and designed for the local context it is not clear that community is involved in these decisions. In some models the schools can modify curriculum and determine textbooks within ministry guidelines in developed country like India (Bray, 2014). Others Colley, (2015) report that community members do not capitalize on spaces for contributing to curriculum and administration for various reasons  including a perceived lack of capacity.

The community plays a role of influence the direction of the leaders of development programmes and projects, the notion of community participation in international development discourse commonly used to refer to the involvement of local people indecision-making processes and evaluation of development projects as well as the implementation in development projects (Joseph, 2013).

Contributing in solving various difficulties that undermine the school system and progress, especially in developing countries like Tanzania some community members are involving in the school leaders in a school administration as board of school (Rose, 2003). So they are Participating in real decision making at every stage of solving the variety of difficulty such as,  identification of problems, study of feasibility, planning, implementation, and evaluation to the conclusion reached, as a result bring quality education.

Furthermore, community participation is contributing to attendance of meetings, contribution of cash, contribution of labour and involvement in decision-making in the sense elaborated by Colleta, N. & Perkins, G. (1995). More specifically, participation in this study is focused on the construction of classrooms, teachers’ houses and services.

Community participation has contributing a lot in Teaching Learning Process, the setting of teaching standards, recruitment, teacher training, teacher’s salary, condition of service, promotion and discipline are important factors that always comes under debate. Involvement of community in selection of teacher can play vital role in the selection of excellent teacher as per their need. The teacher selected by the community shows the responsibility towards the children of the community. Teacher salary is one of the factors that affect the performance of teachers and teacher’s performance directly related to the quality of the education. Thus, the salary and condition of services could be shared by the community (Henderson & Mapp, 2002).

Community understands the local needs and the nature of their environment better than outsiders, participation makes local people to act as multiplier of new project which they achieve. They can easily transmit the new knowledge they acquired to other communities, thus cause a rapid increase in growth of the new idea; participation promotes a sense of ownership among the community of equipment used in the project, and even projects itself. For example, they protect and maintain the project through their own means e.g. school buildings; it also enhances empowerment to community members by building their capacity to identify, define, solve and implement various social an economic issues that affect their lives; and participation creates sense and attitude of self-reliance; this especially happens when the project developer leaves the project to the indigenous community (Agrawal, A et al, 2006).

The contribution provided by communities also, includes increasing the participation and performance of students, the parents are provided with capacity building supports including participatory skills, information on the student’s performance and ways parent can contribute to improved learning outcomes (Maxwell, 2011). Others found that parents and community members encourage attendance, support study outside classroom, advise students, provide assistance to needy students, and monitor and discuss dropouts. These show the varied ways in which communities, through management bodies and as a social responsibility, can contribute to lowering student attrition and improving performance.

Collaborating with the community is to identify and integrate resources as well as services from the community in order to strengthen school programmes, family practices, and student learning.     (Joseph, 2013) provides the following degrees of participation in education; designing policy, curriculum development, teachers hiring/firing, supervision, payment of teachers, teacher training, textbook distribution, certification, building and maintenance of classrooms and mobilizing resources.

CONCLUSION

Explanation on the effects, successes and failures as far as community involvement in various aspects of school management is concerned. Makene (2004) investigated the perception of school Heads, teachers and community members on the effects of underfunding on the performance of community secondary schools in Tanzania and revealed there is a significant relationship between poor funding on teaching materials and performance in national examinations. The effectiveness of community secondary schools in Tanzania and came out with the conclusion that schools are ineffective in the provision of education. Also, the pattern and causes of dropouts in community secondary schools and attributed that substantial amount of dropouts to households with poor socio – economic background.

REFERENCES

Agrawal, A et al (2006). Decentralization and Environmental Conservation and Gender effects from participation in joint forest management: IDBA. Washington DC

Bryman A. (2008). Social Research Methods, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press: London

Colleta, N. & Perkins, G. (1995). Participation in Education.Environment Department.

Paper Series No.001: Washington, DC

Colley, B. (2015). Community and Parental Involvement in Zimbabwe and West Africa in Promising Practices for Family Involvement in Schooling Across the Continents, Diana Hiatt-Michael (ed). Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing

Joseph, T. (2013). Basic Education Statistic in Tanzania . Ministry of Education and

Vocation Training: Dar es Salaam.

Makene, D. (2004). Community Participation in Schools in Developing Countries,

Characteristics, Methods and Outcomes. CSAP: Ethiopia

Maxwell, J. (2011). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (2nd Ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing

Rose, P. (2003). Community Participation in school policy and practice in Tanzania, balancing local knowledge, national policies and international agency priorities. Washington, D.C.: USAID.

Henderson, A. & Mapp, K. (2012). A new wave of evidence: The impact of school, family and community connections on student achievement. Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.