ABSTRACT

This research work is title “Community participation in Educational Programs and its Effect on School Development in the Primary School”. The purpose of this study is to find out the role of community in school program. To find out the part play by parents, church, NGO/ companies, counsel, elites and politician in the community, in education program and how they foster school development in the community. The population of the study is made up of 18 teachers and 30 parents. While the sample population here is the teachers from GBPS Akonolinga, Catholic school Akonolinga and REMPSA. As far as the teachers were concern 6 teachers from GBPS Ekam, 6 teachers from REMPSA, and 6 teachers from catholic school Akonolinga and a total of 6 teachers and 30 parents was selected from both schools,10 from GBPS Akonolinga  and 6 teachers each from others  school. The instrument use for this research was the questionnaires; the data was analysis using frequency and percentage and recommendations were made to the government, school administration, Head teachers/principles and to the parents and other members of the community.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

General Introduction

Community refers to a group of people living in the same place or group of people who share common interest and a sense of identity. The school community is the various individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are invested in the welfare and vitality of a public school and its community. That is the neighborhood and the municipality served by the school. The school community encompasses the school administrators, teachers, pupils, staff members who work in the school, the parents and pupils family, local resident and organization that have a stake in school success such as school board members, city officials, elected representative, business, organization, cultural institution and related organization and groups such as parents teachers association, charitable foundation and volunteer school-improvement committee. Hence the school is an intersection of interest in education that brings the diverse groups together to form a school community. According to Willie, (2006) the community has contributive and distributive purposes in the school.

Community participation in education is a concept that attempts to bring different stakeholders together for problem solving and decision making in the education program. Cole (2007) says the community plays an important part in the education process. Teachers and parents agree that community support is vital to the success of schools and individual student UNICEF 1992. The community can play a variety of roles in the provision, management and development of education and learning process as such contributing to promote education, promote transparency & accountability. Parents and community can work together in right direction to improve the educational delivery through proper use of resources and resource person especially with the competence base approach  ( C B A ) curriculum where some skill are to deliver though person from the community.

The parent role mirror the community’s at both school wide and the classroom level. Parents are expected to take part in discussions about the school policy, children development issues, curriculum planning and assist to clarify their children at home on difficult aspect in their books. According to Sullivan (2000) disruptive behavior of pupils such as violence and bullying that lead to student failing to perform to their full academic potentials can be control if the community and school work together. The presence of elite in Parent Teachers Association PTA meetings helps to construct ideas about the progress of the school. They contribute finance and materials for projects retained. They follow up to see that the projects retained are executed.

However, it is painful to know that most primary schools neglect community participation in education program. Some school administrators do not call parent and members of the community to take part in issues or meetings concerning the school. In other cases where parents are invited they are not interested and the attendance is law. Also, those educated parents who give constructive ideas usually claim to be too occupied. This has an impact on school development and children education. This brings us to look at why community does not participate in educational program and how it affects school development.

Background to the Study

Community participation in education program is a two way street where the school and the community actively work together creating a network of share responsibilities for school development. These branches of the community which are needed to participate in school development include: the parents who provide the pupils in the school, the parent teachers association made up of parent of pupils in a particular school, the council which is an administrative body of people formally constituted and meeting regularly or it is a group of people of people elected to manage the affairs of a city, country or their municipal district. The church which is a religious body in the community is also expected to participate in the activities of the school and organization like nongovernmental organization, x-student organization, MTN, Orange, nestle network and banks are groups in the community that needs to participate in school program.

The parents are members of the community that are supposed to participate in school programs. They provide the pupils who enroll in the school, physical, material support and they need to assist in matters concerning their children learning. For the school to succeed in teaching / learning transaction, it has to collaborate with the parents so as to meet children need and understand their differences. The parents usually participate in school program through the Parent Teachers Association (PTA) which is an association made up of parent and teachers of a particular school. This association is expected to exist in all primary school in Cameroon with its rule in the primary school stated .But in some school its existence is merely on papers. The PTA is expected to meet every term to discuss issues about the functioning of the school. In so doing they look at the success and difficulties of the previous year then came to an agreement on how to solve the problems they meet in the school during their meetings. The PTA then come up with projects depending on the needs of the school and votes a budget to meet these needs and see to it that the school projects are realized. Some of the projects carried out by the PTA include:  construction of school fence, construction of classrooms, water and electricity projects, recruitment of PTA teachers if there is need for teachers, provision of infrastructure like benches, table, didactic material to the school and they see into the general wellbeing of the school it is not moving well they may call the attention of the head teacher or the higher authority.  The PTA activities in the school help in the development of the school.

The council is another group in the community that participates in school program for school development and progress. As earlier said the council is an administrative body formally constituted and meeting regularly or is a group of people elected to manage the affairs of the city, village or other municipal district. Communities where school boards and council work together provide useful tips for creating collaboration and development of the school. The community council sees to it that all projects the government grants in the community are successfully implemented including those concerning the school like the construction of classrooms. The council also finance projects in their locality that there see necessary like the recruitment of teachers to reinforces those send by the government, the council give material like benches , chair ,equipment to stop the spread of covid- 19 and the council also assign land for the construction of classroom. A member of the community council is represents in school council. Since it is the school council that decide and manage school project, of the primary school in Cameroon, school successes and difficulties are easily channel to the council where there could easily intervened. The council can also help to send the demand of the school to the government on behalf of the school.  The council can present situation or needs of the school in their locality through the politician representative found in the community council. The council can also look into the activities of the school and intervened where necessary, like whether the head teacher is doing his work or he/ she moves round during work hours drinking or doing transportation business like the case of some head teachers in Akonolinga. Other head teachers carry school material given to them in the minimum package and sell them to people in the community. If the council notice such cases they can called the attention of school hierarchy. The council helps to see that members of the community do not have a negative influence in the school. Some trounce in the community moves around breaking the doors and windows of the school building. The council and the school can collaborate to fight this criminal act. Any victim is taken to the forces of law and order. Again the council also helps to protect school workers working in their community. From my observation active collaboration between the school board and city council may make fruit servant of the community they share and move from good to better development.

The church is another religious group in the society that contributes in school development and need to participate in school program. In rural council area like where there is no radio houses, most announcement that the school want to send to the community are send through the church. Most churches organized back to school mass where advices are given to children. The father and pastors also pray and call for God protection for our pupils at the beginning of the academic year.  When the school discovers that they are some children with spiritual problems teacher’s advices the parents to take such children for delivery session in the church. In most cases when there are meetings in the school, pastors are call and their contribution count because they usually speak with wisdom. All of church activity helps to shape the atmosphere in the school.

Again most organization in our community also contribute in school development some of them include nongovernmental organization, (NGO), MTN, Nextel, Orange network and banks. Non-governmental organization are voluntary groups of individuals or organization usually not affiliated with any government form to provide services to the community or to advocate a public policy and most of them are nonprofit cooperation. In Akonolinga there exist NGO like plan Cameroon and the UNO commission which usually participate in school programs and give support to schools. The NGO census the orphans and children from poor back ground who cannot afford for their school needs and give to them some assistance and they also offer covid-19 equipments like soap, bucket, face mask to schools to stop the spread of Covid- 19. They can also bring Peace Corps teachers to the school to teach new ideas and bring material assistance to schools. With permission from hierarchy they can also organized seminars and workshop on important topic for the benefit of the school and the community like seminar on the important to practice inclusion in the school. The UNO also send text books to primary schools and are distributed to pupils when teaching. They also provide wheel chairs to handicap cases in the school. Also x-pupils association is also a very important organization that promotes school development. This is an association of pupil who has in the past school in a particular school. They use to move to their formal school give advice to pupils offer gift to best student and scholarship to some. Their participation in school program will promote school development since they offer help to solve some of the school problems.

Again the different network agencies in our community also help to promote school development like MTN, NEXTLE and ORANGE Company. They help to facilitate money transaction in the school. During PTA meetings, agents from this company can be invited to the school. There can facilitate the payment of PTA levy agree by the parents during the PTA meetings. They will explain to the parents where and how they can pay the fees. Again the banks in the community need to participate in school program. They could also help in money transaction that take place in the school. At times parents need to borrow some money from the bank to buy their children school need in September before cocoa harvest season so that when they sell the cocoa in December can pay it back. This could be discussed in PTA meeting in school and the bank sees how to assist the parents to take school loan. Also the PTA can also open an account in the bank where money is kept and use gradually.

The chief is also an important member of the community who is expected to participatein the running of school program. He is the head of the village and received strangers who entered in the village. When a head teacher or teacher enters a community he/ she first move to the village head or to the palace before looking for where to stay. When a teacher have problems in a village with villagers it is the chief that will came into his/her rescue and solve the problem. The chief open the doors of the palace to newly recruited teachers and provide land for construction of school and discuss positively in school council meeting for the realization of school projects. The participation of the chief in school programs will promote school development.

The elites are also members of the community that can also help in the development of the school if they participate in school programs.  These are important people in our community like senators, minister, businessmen. They can see into the problems of the school and provide financial assistance for the payment of teachers recruited by the PTA, they can provide scholarship to intelligent pupils in the community, and to pupils in need like offends, they can also help in the construction of classrooms where necessary and channel the problems of the school to the highest level of government.

The politicians also help to bring development to the community and to the school if the problems of the school are made known to them. They help in the construction of classrooms, provision of water, electricity, build toilets and give scholarship to encourage education in their community.

Community participation in school programs will lead to infrastructural development. The elites, politician, parent through the PTA will see into the needs of the school if the infrastructure are lacking, they would provide infrastructure. Also there would be improvement in the quality of teaching. Through the organization of seminars, Peace Corps will bring new ideas to the school, availability of text books brought by the NGO they would be improvement in the quality of education provided by the school. Through community participation in education, spirit of inclusion and democracy would be promoted in the school. Intelligent pupils in the community who could not afford to continue education will receive scholarship to move to higher height. Also some orphans who would have been dropout from school would receive assistance and materials to go to school reducing crime wave and prostitution in the community. Also through the promotion of inclusion handicap children in our community schools can receive assistance like wheel chairs which would permit them to go to school. With all these contribution there would be expansion in the school and reduction of illiteracy in the community and community development.

Despite all these I doubt how most school would function without the involvement of the community in educational program. This has called the attention of this researcher to examine the role of community participation in educational program that leads to school development and find out the reasons why community are neglected when it concern school management in most primary schools in Akonolinga.

Statement of the Problem.

The increase of many primary schools in Cameroon today has further increase the scope of requirements and expenses on this school in terms of classrooms, maintenance and need of working personnel/ teachers, furniture, accommodation for teachers, didactic materials and means to maintained them, such that the government alone cannot provide all these needs for the effective functioning of primary school. As such the community need to come in to support to any school in their locality through the, parents Teacher Association PTA, the elites, non -governmental organization NGO and organizations should all participate in school programs and set out some projects to meet up with needs of the school. But I have noticed that in most public, private and lay private primary schools in Akonolinga sub Division community does not actively participate in school programs for the interest of the school and community.

As a result must schools function under a lot of difficulties like poor school structure? When you move to some of the schools building it is as if could fall on the children. Lack of didactic materials, some schools are in bushes, other school in the interior are having just one government teacher teaching from class one to six which make teaching learning very difficult, children problem are not known by teacher and parents as compared to when teachers and parents collaborate, children from poor homes are abandoned to themselves and most of them become dropout, thief’s/drug consumer  and prostitute in nearest feature hindering school development/ dangerous to our community. This explains why the researcher wants to pinpoint the importance of community participation in education program, find out ways to increase community participation in education so as to improve school development.

Objective of the Study

– The objective of this study is to find out the role of community participation in school program.

-To find out the part play by parents, church, NGO/ companies, counsel, elites and politician in education program and how it foster school development in the community.

Research Question

The following research questions are formulated to guide this study.

1. What is the role of parent in the school development?
2. What is role of council in school development?
3. What is role of church in school development?
4. What is role of NGO/ Companies in school development?