Rural Children’s Perceptions of Parental Involvement in Their Education in Pakistan
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Children’s Perceptions of Parental Involvement
1.2. Developing Country Context
2. Methods
2.1. Participants
2.2. Data Collection
2.3. Data Analysis
3. Findings
3.1. Parental Engagement in Children’s Learning
Some parents are not educated, but this is not their fault; it’s their parents’ fault. My parents look after my education, and they say to me, look, we never became literate and have faced many problems, so you study hard. It doesn’t matter that they are uneducated; they take care and play an important role in my education.(Pinki, girl)
My father is a fruit seller, but he encourages me and tells me to study as much as I can. Even on Sundays, if I say that I want to help him, he says, do your schoolwork.(Nomi, boy)
My father is a driver and comes home in the evening. He always works and cannot take much interest in my studies due to his work, but you know he sends me to the tuition centre to study and complete my homework. He doesn’t know about my books, but he is happy when I pass exams.(Fiqa, boy)
I couldn’t get good marks in the previous exam, and my mother was sad. I understood her pain and the hard work she had done for me, and so I studied hard and was third-best in my class, and then I studied harder and, in the last exam, I was top in the class. You know my mother was very happy and bought me a computer.(Zari, girl)
My parents are very nice; they support me in my learning and wish to see me educated. They don’t understand but see my notebooks and appreciate me. I try my best to make them happy.(Sheeda, boy)
When I go back home from school and start doing my homework, I sometimes don’t understand my lesson. Whenever I don’t understand my lesson and get worried, I go to my grandparents’ place, and my uncle helps me do homework.(Babli, girl)
My father cannot help me in learning at home as he has many responsibilities. But whenever I have to prepare for any task or face a problem with doing homework, my aunt and sometimes my uncle helps me.(Gogu, boy)
It is a very serious issue that our parents are not educated. Thank God my elder brother helps me, and you know when he is not at home, I try to study by myself, but I cannot learn as well as I do with my brother.(Veer, boy)
My mother is illiterate, so she doesn’t come to the PTM [parent–teacher meeting], but my sister comes and discusses my progress with my teacher.(Diya, girl)
First, my father tries to come to school, but if for some reason he cannot come, my elder brother or sometimes my cousin come and meet my teacher.(Chintoo, boy)
My grandmother always comes to my school and asks my teacher how I am getting on. She is not educated, but she comes to my school and then informs my parents.(Nina, girl)
My father is out of the country and works in Saudi Arabia, but my uncle comes to my school to know about my learning progress from my teachers at my father’s place.(Munna, Boy)
3.2. Barriers to Parental Involvement
My parents are not educated, and I know that is why they don’t come to school. Sometimes, I feel very sad and disturbed because, if they don’t come to my school, how they will know whether I’m studying at school or not?(Bablu, boy)
My mother cannot help me with doing homework because she doesn’t know about my books. She also doesn’t come to my school to meet my teacher as she remains busy with household tasks and my father or uncle cannot meet my teacher because this is a girls’ school.(Honey, girl)
After school, in the evening, I often go into the fields with my father to cut fodder for our goats, and we come back home at sunset, and sometimes I cannot do my homework because of power cuts.(Khan, boy)
My uncle is poor; he has a small shop in the village and works there all the time. His son doesn’t complete homework and often doesn’t come to school because his father needs his help in the shop.(Mintu, Boy)
I have a friend, Aliya; she was my classmate and a good friend of mine. She was second-best in the class, but in the seventh grade, she left school. We were all very sad when she left school. Her father could not cover her school expenses. I wish she could study because she had big dreams.(Fairy, girl)
We have to buy exercise books to write in, and sometimes my father doesn’t have the money to buy my exercise book and then I don’t go to school, because if I go to school without an exercise book, the teacher insults me.(Nomi, boy)
3.3. Parental Interference Hindering Children’s Education
My parents sometimes ask me to leave school after the eighth grade, and I have asked my father, why are you asking me this? [girl was angry] He (father) replied, what will you do if you get an education, you’ll be getting married in a few years.(Honey, girl)
My cousin is very intelligent. Every year she got a good ranking in the class. Her mother says they will not educate her further, so she only studied until the fifth grade. After that, they arranged her engagement, and next year, she might get married.(Guria, girl)
Our neighbours don’t let their girls go to school. They are very strict parents. The girls are really fond of learning, but they don’t allow them because they think it could put their family’s honour at risk.(Pinki, girl)
I have a cousin (male); his father sent him to a private school, and his sister is studying in our school [state school]. I know his parents don’t take much interest in their daughter’s education, but they really care about their son. They say that our son will take care of us when we become old, and the daughter will get married soon.(Jiya, girl)
4. Discussion and Conclusions
Future Research Directions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Themes | Sub-Themes | Data Excerpts |
---|---|---|
Parental engagements in children’s education | Parents convince children | My parents look after my education, and they say to me, look, we never became literate and have faced many problems, so you study hard… |
Joint family compensate Parenting | My parents are illiterate and cannot help me with homework, but they ask me to get help from my cousin because she is educated and helps me… | |
Barriers to parental involvement | Parental illiteracy | My parents are not educated…Sometimes, I feel very sad and disturbed…if they don’t come to my school, how they will know whether I’m studying at school or not? |
Parental poverty | I have a friend Aliya; she was the second-best in class…she left the school…her father can’t cover her studies costs… | |
Parental interference hindering children’s education | Local customs | My parents sometimes ask me to leave school after the eighth grade…you’ll be getting married in a few years. |
Gender-based involvement | Our neighbors don’t let their girls go to school; girls are really fond of learning… |
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Ahmed, Q.W.; Rönkä, A.; Perälä-Littunen, S. Rural Children’s Perceptions of Parental Involvement in Their Education in Pakistan. Educ. Sci. 2022, 12, 323. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12050323
Ahmed QW, Rönkä A, Perälä-Littunen S. Rural Children’s Perceptions of Parental Involvement in Their Education in Pakistan. Education Sciences. 2022; 12(5):323. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12050323
Chicago/Turabian StyleAhmed, Qazi Waqas, Anna Rönkä, and Satu Perälä-Littunen. 2022. "Rural Children’s Perceptions of Parental Involvement in Their Education in Pakistan" Education Sciences 12, no. 5: 323. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12050323
APA StyleAhmed, Q. W., Rönkä, A., & Perälä-Littunen, S. (2022). Rural Children’s Perceptions of Parental Involvement in Their Education in Pakistan. Education Sciences, 12(5), 323. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12050323