Community participation in basic education in the Akatsi district of the Volta region of Ghana

Abstract

Researchers and educationists have stipulated that community participation in education is an invaluable tool in promoting quality education in localities across countries. This study therefore used this as a base to measure important aspects of community participation in education. The purpose of the study was to examine the state of community participation in education in the Akatsi District of the Volta Region of Ghana. The study was a descriptive survey. In all 39 schools and their communities were covered in the study. A total of 285 respondents were selected using purposive and simple random sampling techniques. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. Three sets of questionnaires were used: one for the headteachers and teachers which had a reliability coefficient of .8270, one for community members which had a reliability coefficient of .7480, and the other for the district education officers which also had a reliability coefficient of .8763. The major finding of this study was that even though there was some awareness among the communities of their responsibilities to their schools, parents’ attitude to their children’s education was poor and the schools had not been taking part in community programmes. The study recommended that both schools and communities be educated more on their roles to enhance community participation and school-community relationship.