Children have a right to an education, a quality education.
Quality education includes:
- Learners who are healthy, well-nourished and ready to participate and learn, and supported in learning by their families and communities.
- Environments that are healthy, safe, protective and gender-sensitive, and provide adequate resources and facilities.
- Content that is reflected in relevant curricula and materials for the acquisition of basic skills, especially in the areas of literacy, numeracy and skills for life, and knowledge in such areas as gender, health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS prevention and peace.
- Processes through which trained teachers use child-centered teaching approaches in well-managed classrooms and schools and skilful assessment to facilitate learning and reduce disparities.
- Outcomes that encompass knowledge, skills and attitudes, and are linked to national goals for education and positive participation in society.
This definition also takes into account the global and international influences that propel the discussion of educational quality
(Motala, 2000; Pipho, 2000), while ensuring that national and local educational contexts contribute to definitions of quality in varying countries (Adams, 1993). Establishing a contextualized understanding of quality means including relevant stakeholders. Key stakeholders often hold different views and meanings of educational quality (Motala, 2000; Benoliel, O’Gara & Miske, 1999). Indeed, each of us judges the school system in terms of the final goals we set for our children our community, our country and ourselves (Beeby, 1966).
In all aspects of the school and its surrounding education community, the rights of the whole child, and all children, to survival, protection, development and participation are at the center. This means that the focus is on learning which strengthens the capacities of children to act progressively on their own behalf through the acquisition of relevant knowledge, useful skills and appropriate attitudes; and which creates for children, and helps them create for themselves and others, places of safety, security and healthy interaction(Bernard, 1999).
What does quality mean in the context of education? Many definitions of quality in education exist, testifying to the complexity and multifaceted nature of the concept. The terms efficiency, effectiveness, equity and quality have often been used synonymously(Adams, 1993).
Definitions of quality must be open to change and evolution based on information, changing contexts, and new understandings of the nature of education’s challenges. New research ranging from multinational research to action research at the classroom level contributes to this redefinition.
Family support for learning.
Parents may not always have the tools and background to support their children’s cognitive and psychosocial development throughout their school years. Parents’ level of education, for example, has a multifaceted impact on children’s ability to learn in school. In one study, children whose parents had primary school education or less were more than three times as likely to have low test scores or grade repetition than children whose parents had at least some secondary schooling (Willms, 2000). Parental education not only influences parent-child interactions related to learning, but also affects parents’ income and need for help in the home or field help that often comes at the expense of keeping children in school
(Carron & Chau, 1996). Parents with little formal education may also be less familiar with the language used in the school, limiting their ability to support learning and participate in school-related activities.
The effects of schools in poor areas can often outweigh the impact of family background and practices (Fuller, et al., 1999). Further, although many constraints exist, schools can play a role in helping parents to enhance the ‘home curriculum’ and improve the quality of parental involvement in their children’s education. Strategies include, for example, partnering with organizations that can affect parenting in the pre-school years such as public health providers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs); asking parents to participate in assessment of their child’s progress, offering clear, regular, non-threatening communication; and including parents in decision-making groups at the school (Redding, 2000). Successful attempts to increase parental involvement have taken place around the world. One example is the creation of student newspapers in China. Such newspapers “exist at different levels of the education system and in urban as well as rural zones. The result is that, much more than in other countries, pupils and parents have the possibility to read, which is of benefit in particular to the otherwise disadvantaged rural families” (Carron & Chau, 1996)
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