Including parents in schools

A lot of research shows that up to 70% of student achievement in schools is shaped by what happens outside schools - in the community at large and in families in particular. So what sense does it make to exclude parents from schools or to include them only for fundraising, outings, activities and when it is time to refurbish school buildings?

Parental involvement in schools should be more meaningful than that. International studies like PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS, which evaluate students' achievement in maths, science and literacy, link teaching and learning to parent empowerment. That is why there are initiatives in many countries to involve parents in the formal education of their children. There is a growing emphasis on programmes seeking to improve parents' ability to support child literacy development.

Children born and bred in situations of poverty and social exclusion are at a disadvantage if schools do not address these inequalities. In many countries educational work is done with disadvantaged families, and results show that they benefit from more structured programmes. It is clear that family literacy programmes are effective, both in improving child literacy and in improving parental support skills.

For example in the UK, the evidence suggests that government-funded family literacy interventions have been successful at improving child literacy amongst children in disadvantaged households.

The Turkish Early Enrichment Project (TEEP) has achieved success, as has its successor, the Mother-Child Education Programme (MOCEP). There is strong evidence of long-term cognitive and non-cognitive gains for disadvantaged children participating in these programmes.

Evidence suggests that long-term gains in child literacy are particularly likely when family literacy programmes emphasise the importance of providing parents with training, not just in educational support skills but also in socio-emotional support skills.

Other research shows that institutional barriers frequently limit the development of family literacy initiatives. In many countries, parents are acknowledged in principle as the 'first teachers'; however, in practice, school systems are often indifferent or even hostile to the potential of family literacy interventions to complement school-based literacy strategies. That is why in Malta, we must ensure that the new national literacy strategy continues to include a strong family literacy component.

Our priority

• Need to have parents lead a more active role in school life
• School development plans - parental empowerment to be given a new understanding and parents to be made active partners in our schools
• Heads of school to include the voice of parents and consult with them on major issues at schools
• Parents should feel that they contribute to the holistic education of their children
• Identify needs of students and ask for any training they may need to help their children in their teaching and learning
• The national literacy strategy will include the participation of parents as main stakeholders

We must give a new lease of life to school councils, which at the moment are made up of three parents, three teachers, the head of school, and a president (nominated by the minister of education). We must empower school councils to be part of the democratic governance of schools, such that decisions are taken through the inclusion of teachers, parents and students.

At the moment parental involvement in schools is very weak. When elections were held for school councils last January, only 17 of 102 schools participated. Two schools do not have a school council, as they received no nominations from parents. The remaining 83 schools had just enough nominations and needed no election.

We must work hard to get more parents involved in the schooling of their children.

Evarist Bartolo is the minister for education