Community participation in the provision of basic education in the Mfanstiman municipality of the central region of Ghana

Abstract

The study was conducted to explore the state of community involvement in the provision of basic education in the Mfantsiman Municipality of the Central Region. The research design used for the study was a descriptive survey. A total sample of 260 respondents made up of officers of municipal education directorate, teachers and PTAs/SMCs and Municipal Assembly members were selected for the study. These respondents were drawn from 50 Basic Schools which were randomly selected from the total number of 98 schools in the municipality. The simple random sampling using the lottery method was used to select the respondents. The survey employed the use of questionnaire which was pilot tested with a Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficient of .832. The descriptive statistics was used to analyse data where frequency counts, percentages and tables were employed. The analysis revealed that community participation was greatly felt in terms of the provision of land for school projects and communal labour to help put up school projects. However, it was realised that community involvement in terms of financial assistance was relatively low. Again, members of the community did not show keen interest in the teachers’ use of instructional hours as well as in the welfare of teachers. The research thus recommends that collaboration between the school and the community be strengthened to ensure that the community’s participation in education delivery becomes stronger. Again, there should be effective strategies such as frequent visits by circuit supervisors to monitor the use of contact hours.