Parents’ Provision of Scholastic Materials and Pupils’ Academic Performance in Selected Primary Schools in Kyotera Town Council, Uganda

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between parents’ provision of scholastic materials and pupils’ academic performance in selected primary schools in Kyotera Town Council. The researchers adopted a cross-sectional survey design where both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used. Census and purposive sampling technique were used to select a sample of 71 teachers and 4 head teachers of the selected schools. The major instruments used in the study were a Likert scale type questionnaire which was filled by teachers as well as an interview guide for head teachers. Validity of the research instrument was computed and results were found to be .86 while the reliability obtained was .948. The study utilized SPSS to analyze descriptive data which was presented in form of tables with frequencies and percentages. Equally, a Pearson Product Moment correlation coefficient analysis was conducted to establish the relationship between variables. From the findings, the correlation between parents’ provision of scholastic materials to children and academic performance was found to be moderate (r = 0.461, N = 71, p = .00 < 0.01). It is being concluded that there is disparity in parents’ provision of scholastic materials to their children and this also obtains in the diversity within pupils’ academic performance. Thus, the study recommends that the parents and teachers associations (PTA) should ensure that children are provided with basic scholastic materials so that that all pupils can learn efficiently.

Keywords

• academic performance
• parent
• primary school
• scholastic materials