Home-school partnerships in literacy development in selected basic schools of Lusaka District

Abstract

This study sought to investigate the strategies or techniques that teachers use to promote partnership with parents in home-school partnerships meant for literacy development in selected basic schools of Lusaka District. It also extended its focus to exploring the importance and the constraints of home-school partnerships. The measures taken to enhance the already stated initiatives were also investigated. The sample size consisted of 6 administrators, 36 teachers, 36 parents and 36(grade5-7) pupils from three basic schools. The respondents were 114 in total. The research adopted a case study design. Questionnaires, focus group discussion guides and oral semi-structured interview guides were used as research instruments. Qualitative data was analysed thematically. Quantitative data was analysed using simple percentages and frequencies. The findings had shown that teachers used various techniques to partner up with the parents. These were: homework policy, open days, parents’ day, Parent Teacher Association meetings, Literacy Clubs, extra lessons, class visits and remedial work. The study also discovered the importance of home-school partnerships meant for literacy development: teachers were able to know the health as well as family background of pupils and how these affected literacy development, continuation of learning from home to school and vice versa and home-school relations were strengthened. Constraints of home-school partnerships were also revealed by this study. The common ones were: high levels of illiteracy among parents, high poverty levels, parents lacking understanding of the importance of their children’s education, poor attitude of teachers toward parents, lack of communication, and occupational constraints in the case of parents. For ways of improving home-school partnerships, the common findings were as follows: sensitization of communities, building of a community library, encouraging parents to attend P.T.A and other school meetings regularly and formulation of policies regarding home school partnerships. In view of the reported findings, the following recommendations were made: the government should sensitize the communities on the importance of home-school partnerships; communication between teachers and parents must improve, and a community library must be built by the government.