Parental Involvement and Secondary School Students’ Academic Performance in Mpigi Town Council, Mpigi District, Uganda

ABSTRACT This study about parental involvement and secondary school students’ academic performance in Mpigi Town Council, Mpigi district, Uganda was carried out to explore the extent of parental involvement in their children’s education; to assess the academic performance of secondary school students in Mpigi town council, Mpigi district; and to examine the relationship between parental involvement and children’s academic performance in secondary schools, Mpigi town council. Using universal sampling, all the ten secondary schools in Mpigi town council as well as the intact classes of students, Senior One to Senior Four (S.1-S.4) taking the seven compulsory subjects as per the Uganda National Examination Board guidelines were included in the study. Thus, 2,000 students participated in the study. Questionnaires with close -ended and structured items were used to collect data on parental involvement; and the end of term one results for December 2017, April, 2018 and August, 2018 were used for assessing students’ academic performance. The findings were that parental involvement is low, students’ academic performance is poor and the relationship between parental involvement and students; academic performance is significant. Conclusions were made that due to social, political, technological and economic changes in Uganda, in some parts of Uganda some parents have abandoned their roles towards their children; many of them to do not adequately guide their children, help them financially and academically, and do not adequately collaborate with the head teachers and teachers of their children in secondary schools; that students in secondary schools in Mpigi district generally do not perform well academically; and that academic achievement of the learners depends on many factors. Parental involvement is among those factors. The higher the parental involvement, the higher the possibility of the learners getting good results, and viceversa. The recommendations were that there is need for parents in Mpigi district to give enough time for their children, to get highly involved with them, monitor them, and support them financially and academically. Given the poor academic performance of the learners especially in science subjects, the students should put in more effort. They should also be guided by the teachers to stop perceiving science subjects as being hard. Also, since parental involvement influences the children’s learning outcomes significantly, there is need for parents to get involved more in their children’s education, highly monitor their children, guide them and support them financially and academically.