Factors that hinder or promote effective parental and community participation in school governance

Advocates of community participation in school governance generally assume that parents and wider community members equally have the abiding will to take part in school decision making for the benefit of all children. However, the available empirical research in SSA suggests that such willingness is invariably qualifi ed by complex socio-cultural, economic, political and institutional factors in which such reform take places.

  For example, multiple studies identifi ed culture, the history of collective action, and the activities of enterprising individuals in community, the values attached to formal schooling as factors that infl uence the nature and degree of participation (Maclure 1994 [on Burkina faso];

Tshireletso 1997 [on Botswana]; Pryor 2005 [on Ghana]; Yamada 2014 [on Ethiopia]). Other studies demonstrate that community members who do not have children in the concerned school or the parents who live very far from school may not be willing to participate, as they judge that the cost of participation overweigh the benefi ts (Suzuki 2002 [on Uganda]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]; Yamada 2014 [on Ethiopia]).

  Several studies also report that parents are often unaware of the roles of themselves or of the mandates of the SMCs or PTAs in the fi rst place (Marphatia et al. 2010 [on Burundi, Malawi, Senegal and Uganda]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]). In some cases, parental roles in school governance defined in various policy documents are confusing or contradictory (ibid). In Zambia, PTAs are mandated to take part in annual school planning; monitor the implementation of such plan; monitor teaching and learning in classroom and monitoring the use of school grant and their own contribution. However, the majority of parents were unaware of such roles assigned to PTAs and mostly believed that their role was merely to contribute to school either fi nancially or in-kind (Okitsu 2011). Parents’ limited knowledge about their rights and the mandates assigned to participatory structure such as SMCs and PTAs is partly attributed to the absence of manuals and guidelines in local languages, and partly to the lack of effective dissemination of information about its composition and function (ibid).

  In addition, while the participation of community people in the development of local curriculum is much advocated, rural people may not necessary favor diversity in the curriculum and rather regard schooling chiefl y as an important means to get high academic qualifications in order to be selected for secondary school or to gain white collar jobs in urban areas (Maclure 1994 [on Burkina Faso]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]). Thus, community perception sometimes sets the parameters of its collaborative space, even when the

opportunity for such participation arose.

  Such a lukewarm attitude of parents often resultes from their perceived limited ability and agency to take part in managerial and pedagogical aspects of schooling, which in turn arose form their own low literacy level and social status. Additionally, the interpretation of ‘free’ education as meaning that everything related to schooling was the responsibility of trained professionals also at times reinforces such a stance (Suzuki 2002; Rose 2003;

Nishimura et al. 2008; Okitsu 2011).

  In addition, teacher’s resistance to the sharing of power with laypeople is also widely cited as significant barriers to effective lay people participation in key decision making in schools (Chimombo 1999 [on Malawi]; Suzuki 2002 [on Uganda]; Rose 2003 [on Malawi];

Pryor 2005 [on Ghana]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]). Chimombo (1999) and Tshireletso (1997) in their studies in Malawi and Botswana respectively suggest that teachers tend to have little regard for the input of the community in school management, considering the involvement of local populations in academic and administrative affairs to be an intrusion.

  The study on community participation in rural Zambia (Okitsu 2011) further demonstrates that parents are generally uninterested in the actual teaching and learning processes – e.g. the instructional method employed or the manner in which teachers interact with their pupil, even though it is an infl uential factor in school quality. For many parents whose education experience is limited, the instructional method might be an area that was beyond their knowledge and experience.

  However, it is widely reported that many parents do care about school quality and are keen to be informed of school’s resource fl ow, including their own contribution (Suzuki 2002 [on Uganda]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]). Parents often judge school quality on academic output as expressed by the pass rate in national examinations and the moral and attendance of teachers. Some parents go through their children’s exercise books to check the attendance of both pupils and teachers (Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]; Yamada 2014 [on Ethiopia]).

  Theoretically, the meetings of PTA or SMC serve as democratic space in which parents and members of the community air their views and concerns about school quality and resource management. However, in reality, it is not uncommon that parents hesitate to press their point of view freely at such fora as they feel that they do not have sufficient ability, knowledge, experience or language skills to articulate their opinions in a public meeting.

By defi nition, participation requires time, effort, resources, expertise and confi dence. In this regard, it has been widely reported that the poor, the disadvantaged, the illiterate, women and social and ethnic minorities are often less endowed with the material and cultural resources necessary in order to play their new governance roles effectively (Rose 2003 [on Malawi];

Dunne et al. 2007 [in SSA in general]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]). Some parents also hesitate to express their concerns for fear of the negative consequences such as potential revenge from teachers (Suzuki 2002 [on Uganda]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]).

  Several studies report that even the concerns are expressed by some parents at public

meetings, such voices are often dismissed as illegitimate by the teachers (Suzuki 2002 [on Uganda]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]). Okitsu (2011) observed that it was more often the rule than the exception that teachers blamed bad parenting for low educational output rather than offering reasonable explanations for their own behavior. As such, contrary to the policy and theoretical premise, the participatory space often reinforces the existing unequal power relationship between school and community. This is often reinforced by the fact that parents are only consulted once decisions have been reached (Okitsu 2011; Marphatia et al. 2010).

  Furthermore, several empirical studies report the widespread occurrence of local elite capture and the dominance of SMC by the few powerful members who are often economically and socially more privileged than the rank and file members. As a result, a newly opened participatory space such as SMC often serves merely to maximize the narrow interests of certain parents who know how to manipulate the democratic process, while the voices and protests of socially and economically disadvantaged are less likely to be heard (e.g. Suzuki 2002 [on Uganda]; Rose 2003 [on Malawi]; Pryor 2005 [on Ghana]; De Grauwe et al. 2005 [on Benin, Guinea, Mali and Senegal]; Sayed and Soudien 2005 [on South Africa];

Dunne et al. 2007 [in SSA in general]; Essuman and Akyeampong 2011 [on Ghana]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]). Sayed and Soudien’s study on South Africa reported that SGBs in white dominated schools excluded black parents from SGBs and refused to consider appointment of black teachers. Furthermore, the same study reported that schools for colors or Indians had been able to justify reluctance to admit poor black student. These cases show SGBs can facilitate exclusion rather than inclusion and points to the need to rethink aspects of the power to be decentralized to the school level (ibid).

  In other cases, the members of SMC and PTA are often hand-picked by the school instead of being democratically elected by the rank and fi le members, with the result being the absence of any legitimacy of such organization (Marphia et al. 2010). The general lack of transparency in fi nancial management by their leaders also often leads to parental mistrust of participatory institutions, leading to their demotivation to attend meetings or provide their fi nancial or in-kind contribution to school. As such, as opposed to the largely unproblematic use of the concept of ‘community’ as an analytical unit, the composition of community in reality is much more complex and often highly hierarchical. Thus, it should be acknowledged that participation may contain the inherent risk of reinforcing pre-existing intra-community inequalities.

  While their concerns and opinions rarely been heard, parents are often only requested to contribute to school either fi nancially or in-kind. However, the lack of transparency of their contribution coupled with low quality of education on offer sometimes discourage them to contribute to school, resulting in the chronic shortage of school resources (Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]). Also, it is reported that SMC or PTA executives and teachers do not always ensure that community contribution requirements do not exclude any child from the opportunity to go to school (Rose 2003 [on Malawi]; Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]. Indeed, despite free education policy adopted in many countries in SSA, there are cases where the children of those parents

who were unable to contribute to school are either openly suspended from school by the teachers and PTA executive members, or not allowed to sit at examinations (Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]). Even if pupils are not explicitly suspended for non-payment, persistent reminders for payment often made many pupils withdraw of their own accord in order to avoid public disgrace (ibid). Thus, in such a context, putting the accent on community participation in school may run the great risk of increasing inequity between schools and households, as determined by the varying socio-economic, geographical and cultural endowment of each community, instead of redressing them.

  Furthermore, several studies suggest that limited resources and authority granted to schools and teachers also often constitute a considerable barrier to the increased responsiveness of schools towards parents (Rose 2005; Dunne et al. 2007; Okitsu 2011).

The catch-all slogan of decentralization notwithstanding, the evidence suggests that little of the decentralization reform in SSA is accompanied by distribution of the corresponding resources necessary for schools to be accountable towards parents and the wider community.

In particular, rural schools lacks high quality and suffi cient teaching forces, recurrent budgets, textbooks and other educational materials, safe and healthy school infrastructure that is conducive to learning, or capacity to take on the responsibilities expected of them. Formula-based capitation transfers have been introduced in many countries to compensate for lost school revenue due to a free education policy. However its amount is often too small while the timing of disbursement is highly unpredictable (Dunne et al. 2007 [in SSA in general];

Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]).

  The issue of community schools warrants particular attention in this regard. Many community schools in SSA were established by default due to the failure of the government to provide affordable education institutions in remote rural areas (Gershberg & Winkler 2004;

Rose 2006). In her study of non-state education providers, Rose (2006) found that most state support to community schools was inadequate or inappropriate. In addition, Maclure (1994) and Okitsu (2011) conclude that in Burukina Faso and Zambia respectively, given the fact that there was serious widespread poverty in the locality, parents were unable to pay teachers’

salaries, which resulted in the problem of attempting to sustain unremunerated volunteer teaching.

  Nevertheless, several studies acknowledges the examples of successful parental and community participation in school management in SSA that increased school accountability (Muskin 1999 [on Mali]; Akyeampong 2004 [on Ghana]; Dowd 1997, cited in Rose 2006 [on Malawi]; Honda and Kitano 2013 [on Niger]). Several studies suggest that holding fair and regular election of PTAs and SMCs members through secret ballot contribute to the increased accountability and legitimacy of these participatory institutions, which in turn increase people’s motivation to participate (Okitsu 2011 [on Zambia]; Honda and Kitano 2013 [on Niger]).^３） Such strategy may help ease the parental fear of upsetting the local elite on whom many people’s lives are dependent.

  Indeed, several studies revealed that the parents and other members of the local community tend to redouble their participation in school affairs –such as contribution to the school and attendance of meetings – when they are certain that their efforts are matched by those of the teachers in educating their children in line with their expectations (Suzuki 2002;

Okitsu 2011; Honda & Kitano 2013). These evidence indicate the importance of ensuring accountability in schools.

  Yet, these kinds of initiatives are typically not uniformly evident in all school all of the time, but tend to be determined by the quality of school leadership, the cultural, economic and social capital of parents and wider community that exist in the specifi c socio-cultural dynamics of the community. Moreover, these cases are mostly the ones which were assisted by non-governmental organization (NGOs) or international donors often through the provision of capacity building and training of key local actors. The challenge remains therefore to ensure that such participation can be scaled-up nationally and sustained after the externally funded project withdraws.

3.3. Relationship between parental engagement in children’s learning at home and