Brak Dorn
Cambodian Education Forum
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Innovations and Challenges in Cambodian Education: Youth’s Perspectives
Edited by Kimkong Heng, Koemhong Sol, Sopheap Kaing, and Sereyrath Em
© Cambodian Education Forum 2023
Summary
This chapter aims to discuss the benefits and challenges of parental involvement in young learners’ education. The chapter also proposes some recommendations for relevant stakeholders to promote parental involvement. Parents need to be involved and keep track of their children’s education. Schools need to link parents with some school activities. The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport should advertise the benefits of parental involvement by designing educational posters or creating short video clips and linking parents to the communities. Finally, the chapter suggests that future research should explore the activities parents of low socioeconomic status can do to help their children’s schooling at home.
Keywords: Parental involvement; young learners; academic achievements; challenges; suggestions
Introduction
All children were born at different levels of competency, and they can be supported in various forms of practice for upcoming achievement. For instance, parenting experience is a key factor for students’ future success (Bornstein & Lamb, 2002; Bronfenbrenner, 1981; Mayo & Siraj, 2015; Ricker et al., 2021; Singh et al., 2004; Warren, 2010). Parental involvement can be viewed as the engagement of parents in children’s learning development at school or home. Parents can be involved in many activities and practices to assist their children in learning. Moreover, parental involvement is an essential ingredient in children’s education. The research found that parental involvement positively influences children’s academic achievement at school (Marcon, 1999; Peressini, 1998). In language learning, parental involvement in children’s schooling is one of the important components of helping young learners acquire the languages (Wati, 2016).
In the context of Cambodia, Nguon (2012), exploring the effects of parental involvement on students’ achievement in various contexts, found that parental support really increases the level of students’ achievement at school. For example, students got better grades or scores. Hun (2016) conducted research on the understanding and perspectives of parents on parental involvement among parents from various socioeconomic backgrounds and levels. Hun found that parents come up with a broad understanding of parental involvement in supporting children’s learning.
This chapter aims to discuss the benefits and challenges of parental involvement and provides possible suggestions to enhance parental involvement in children’s education.
Benefits of parental involvement
According to Jeynes (2005), the term ‘parental involvement refers’ to “parental participation in the educational processes and experiences of their children” (p. 145). Similarly, parental involvement can be defined as “the participation of parents in regular, two-way, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning and other school activities” (Rapp & Duncan, 2012, p. 3).
Many previous research studies focused on how parental involvement impacts students’ education, development, and achievement (Fan, 2001; Gonzalez-DeHass et al., 2005; Mutodi & Ngirande, 2014; Taub, 2008; Yulianti et al., 2018). For example, Korosidou et al. (2021) found that parental involvement enhances children’s oracy and literacy skills. Moreover, Kim and Barrett (2019), in exploring the association between parental involvement and students’ success, showed that students’ English proficiency increased after their parents engaged in their learning process. The previous studies also showed a number of benefits of parental engagement in educational settings (Balli, 2016; Porumbu & Necşoi, 2013; Sapungan & Sapungan, 2014; Wong et al., 2018). This shows that parents play an important role in the development of children in education, and it is known as a learning strategy for enhancing the effectiveness of education in which learners spend the rest of their time at home (Epstein, 2011).
Liu et al. (2020) explored the roles of parental involvement in child education by constructing a literature review with a previous study. It was found that parental involvement is the most influential factor and useful resource to increase children’s achievement since parents can be considered the earliest teachers who mostly spend time with the learners besides the classroom. The study also recommended that relevant stakeholders, especially educators, should find various approaches to support and motivate parental involvement as a main way to develop children’s learning. Parents are such role models for all children since the children’s words, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs are always shaped by their parents’ everyday activities; hence, the development of infants counts on their parents as well (Bornstein et al., 2014; Hedenbro & Rydelius, 2019).
In the context of Cambodia, Nguon (2012) examined the relationship between parental involvement and students’ achievement in a particular public school in Cambodia. In his study, he employed surveys consisting of questionnaires to obtain the data from 1,551 tenth grade students and 1,445 students’ parents. Moreover, his study also employed semi-structured interviews to collect more data from 33 teachers, 10 school support committee members, and six officials from the district education office. The results from the multiple regression analysis indicated that parental involvement positively correlated with students’ achievement. It means better parental involvement at home can improve students’ learning outcomes at school. For example, students get a better GPA in their studies. Sara (2021) indicated three areas of benefit from parental involvement in children’s education, including improving children’s study motivation, enhancing students’ educational quality, and fostering students’ academic success. His clarification shows that parents need to maintain close relationships with their children as well as the schools.
Furthermore, Sapungan and Sapungan (2014) also strongly believed that:
[…] parent-teacher partnership makes tremendous impact on children’s education. Conversely, the strong collaboration of parents with school authorities can create “tsunami of improvements” in both physical and academic performance of the school. Hence, school administrators have to boldly encourage parents to get involved and make “storm surge of contribution” to help achieve the school’s missions and goals. (p. 45)
Challenges of parental involvement
Although parental involvement plays a crucial role in young learners’ education, a number of challenges obstruct the movement and development of this meaningful approach to helping young learners. While many previous studies focused on the benefits of parental involvement, some research studies found challenges in educational fields (Burke et al., 2014; Kabir & Akter, 2014; Kavanagh & Hickey, 2013; Matshe, 2014; Naong, 2011). Moreover, various barriers have been found regarding parental involvement in their children’s education.
Malone (2017) argued that socioeconomic status (SES) is a potential challenge for parental involvement because some parents struggle to be involved in their children’s education due to their SES. Malone identified four essential issues regarding SES.
The first issue is a lack of knowledge or education. It means that children whose parents are from higher socioeconomic and more educated status are usually more actively and willing to participate in their children’s educational process than those from lower socioeconomic and less educated status (Turney & Kao, 2009). For instance, parents with lower SES and low educational backgrounds have lower visible and active levels of parental involvement.
The second issue is work schedules and transportation issues. This means that most parents with low SES also want to engage in their children’s learning. However, they cannot afford it because of the shortage of crucial family resources, such as time, money, and transportation, to assist their children academically (Davis-Kean & Sexton, 2009; Green et al., 2007).
The third challenge is the preference for home-based involvement. It means some parents from a low SES family also positively agree with parental involvement in children’s learning, but it is not their responsibility or duty. They believe it is the role of the principals and teachers at school, such as in children’s decision-making or working in the community.
The last issue is the visibility of involvement. Although parental involvement has various forms in which students’ parents are able to engage themselves, parents of low SES consider themselves only in the academic process. Those parents think they play a small role, and the parents from higher SES have better and broader perspectives regarding parental involvement. For instance, Turney and Kao (2009) found that parents with better SES and higher education usually get more involved in their children’s education than those parents who are less educated and have low SES. Parents with low SES and low educational backgrounds usually have less time to spend with their children because they are very busy finding family incomes.
Handayani et al. (2020) found that well-educated parents would spend a greater level of involvement in their children’s education than those with a less-educated background since parents with a better educational background provide more educational resources and assistance to their children. However, Hornby and Blackwell (2018) found four important barriers, which were the factors blocking parental involvement, such as parent and family factors (e.g., the negative experience of the parents at school and the low literacy of parents); parent–teacher factors (e.g., the lack of time spent with parents, too much expectation from the parents, and the communication between parents and children); societal factors (e.g., parents’ mental health issues, financial issues, and racism); and practical barriers (e.g., too early school opening hours, ways of connection between parents and teachers, time restraints of parents, and internet safety).
In early childhood schooling, two major areas of challenges were found in parental involvement, such as the lack of resources in terms of educational and professional training background (e.g., the limited access to reliable sources of information and language barriers remain key barriers to parental involvement) and school readiness (e.g., the geographical location of the school and the lack of facilities). Yulianti et al. (2019) also stated that parents with low education would spend less time with their children due to inflexible working hours at their workplaces. Similarly, Kalil et al. (2012) found that more educated mothers devote more time to their children’s development than less-educated mothers.
In the context of Cambodia, young learners’ education is easily impacted by their parents since the young children spend time mostly with their parents at home. Parents can be involved in their children’s education at home and school. Cultural beliefs would be the biggest potential barrier to engaging parents with their children’s learning in Cambodian education (Eng et al., 2017; Sara, 2021). Historically, Cambodia was influenced by the genocidal war in the mid-1970s, and the human capital, such as educated and skilled people, was destroyed and has not been sustainable (Eng et al., 2014).
Furthermore, some parents are poor, so they do not have time for their children because they have to earn money to support the family. World Bank (2012) showed, in its report, that around 30.1% of Cambodian citizens could earn less than 1 dollar per day in 2007, so it was below the poverty line. UNICEF (2008) also reported that resources like parental educational backgrounds, family economic and working statuses, and family size were the important components that influenced the children’s academic success and enrolment.
Suggestions to enhance parental involvement in children’s schooling
Since parental involvement plays a great role in improving and developing young learners’ education, relevant stakeholders should take action. Liu et al. (2020) suggest two crucial stakeholders to implement a successful parental engagement are parents and teachers, and the two stakeholders have different roles to play as follows.
Parents
According to Cozett and Roman (2022), parents ought to assist their children in setting clear and realistic goals in the educational process, and the parents need to be informed and be experts in their children’s learning process at home. Since parents are always close to their children, parents should be allowed to join some special events or meetings at school to discuss their children’s learning process, so they can know some issues about their children. Furthermore, the parents should be open-minded and more willing to participate in some activities at school and contact the teachers on a regular basis.
Teachers
Teachers should also invite parents to express their concerns about their children’s learning. The teachers should involve the parents in the children’s decision-making process in education. Teachers should encourage students’ parents to join some school meetings; therefore, the parents can show some concern. In addition, the teachers can motivate all parents to follow up with their children. For example, parents can check their children’s homework. The teacher should create the contact details of the students’ parents for any issues with learning.
Schools
The schools can promote parental involvement by creating various communities for teachers and students’ parents to find out about current issues; furthermore, the parents should be permitted to join some students’ occasions or programs.
Moreover, as Herrell (2011) stated:
To ensure effective parental involvement, schools may have partnership programs in place that continually develop, implement, evaluate, and improve plans and practices encouraging family and community involvement. There must be mutual trust and respect between the home, school, and community. Partnership programs within the school could train volunteers on specific ways and strategies to assist in the classroom or school. With this type of training, all volunteers would know the expectations and have a better understanding of the operations of the school. Schools need to attempt to involve numerous parents and community members in the education of students through effective partnership programs in an effort of expressing the importance of education. (p. 99)
Conclusion
Parental involvement is greatly beneficial to young learners’ education, and it impacts students’ learning achievement. Some benefits of parental involvement in young learners’ education include improving language skills, increasing the level of achievement, mastering the quality of education, improving children’s motivation, sustaining the educational system, and fostering children’s academic success. However, some challenges have also been discussed regarding parental involvement. One of the biggest challenges is SES since families with low SES tend to spend less time with their children. Additional challenges include parents’ backgrounds and beliefs, social issues, cultural barriers, and a shortage of time.
The four important stakeholders need to know their roles and duties to enhance parental involvement. Parents should devote time to following up with their children and joining some school activities. Parents need to maintain a friendly and close relationship with their children’s schooling. Especially, all parents should not always depend on the teachers at school. Moreover, teachers should motivate all parents to involve their children’s learning by creating special events at schools or communities. School is also an important stakeholder, which can promote parental involvement. Schools should create some meetings to gather all students’ parents to discuss students’ learning issues. Schools can also provide some benefits, such as gifts or motivation letters, to the parents who do well in parental involvement. ‘
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport should encourage all relevant stakeholders and support them to get involved in their children’s learning. Moreover, parents should try to support their children with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and follow up on their children’s studies.
Although most researchers have found that more educated parents participate in parental involvement than less-educated ones, less-educated parents can also involve their children academically at home in some ways. First, less-educated parents can give their children intrinsic and extrinsic motivation because motivation can provide positive reinforcement for the children’s schooling. For example, parents can give small gifts if their children get good grades on homework. Second, less-educated parents can play a role as mentors. They need to stay close to their children and provide them with some advice or ideas, and they can follow up on their children’s development. Third, less-educated parents can be communicators. They can keep a close relationship with their children’s schools in order to follow up on their children’s schooling. For example, they can join some meetings that the school invites them to attend. The last thing that less-educated parents can do to help their children learn at home is to set specific rules suitable for their children. For instance, the children must do homework or tasks provided by the teachers at school.
Future research should explore what parents with low SES and education can do to involve their children in the learning process. As most poor families are busy earning money to support their children, it is crucial to consider research that explores how parents under these conditions can be supported to improve their parental involvement in their children’s education.
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