Parents Perception

8/12/2019 Parents Perception

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PARENTS PERCEPTION REGARDING CHILDREN EDUCATION

Dr Niaz Ahmed Bhutto

Sukkur Institute of Business Administration, Sukkur

Raheel Ahmed Narejo


Falahuddin Butt


Abdul Samad Shaikh


Rinkal Virwani


ABSTRACT

Parental perception plays pivotal role in the life of children during and after the education. This

research was conducted to investigate, the parents perception about sending their children to get

education, through self administered questionnaire distributed among 100 parents in Sukkur

district. Results show that Parents perceive their children to get education in order to improve

economic well being, secondly Parents perceive their daughters to get education in order to

become a part of educated society, not for earning money, finally, parents perceive their children

to acquire academic related skills while getting education, so for career choice and

entrepreneurial skills are acquired at lower end. This research also expands understanding of

parents insights in terms of perception regarding their children education. Results will help in

understanding parents perception about their children education which ultimately influences

children career choice decisions and education.

Key Words: Parents Perception, Children Education, Career Choice and Entrepreneurial

Skills.


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INTRODUCTION

In todays competitive world where everyone wants to be ahead of others by fair or foul

means. Parents have different expectations and perceptions about their children. Parents

perception is formed by number of factors over the period of time. Those factors which shape

parents perceptions are demographic that is age, gender, income, occupation, education,

language, and psychographic that is attitudes, values, personality and interests. What majority of

parents perceive their children to get education is for economic gains and ones own well being.

Those parents who have low income or meager sources of earning, they wish their children to get

education and earn much in order to improve standard of living.

It is harsh reality that very small numbers of parents wish their children to get education

for learning purpose. The common perception of parents about their children education is more

you learn, more you earn very few parents think of education as a source to bring change in

society and improve overall morale of society. In fact the real purpose of education is not only to

earn money but education scintillates and polishes the physical, mental and spiritual faculties of

mind. If education doesnt polish these facilities, its purpose is unfulfilled. The purpose of

education is not to make people money making machine. This research is also aimed to uncover

the hidden insights and know parents point of view about their purpose of their education.a

LITERATURE REVIEWParents perception plays vital role in children education in terms of performance and career

choice. Numerous factors shape parents perception regarding children education which

ultimately influences the children attitude towards education. Parents with different demographic

and psychographic characteristics have different expectations for the education of their children.

Plenty of researches have been done in this regard at national and international level but it is

matter of fact that very few focuses the insights of parents perception.

Haq (2001) describes that Attitudes and behaviors that children adopt toward work are largely a

result of parents' encouragement and influence. This then affects what children think, say, and

perceive about various careers. Most parents want their children to work for economic gain.

Parental involvement in their children's education and choice of career has gained momentum

recently and has been a concern of education policy makers. The education system is an area

where the relationship between the consumer (parents) and the producer (schools) tilts the


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balance of power (Munn, 1998). The education system of a country needs to prepare young

people with skills and abilities that are considered necessary for increased labor productivity and

economic development (Blaug, 1987 & Colman et al 1994)

Haq (2001) expressed that Parents have different educational aspirations for their sons and

daughters. Nearly half of parents feel that a boy should receive an intermediate or higher level of

education (class 12 or more), whereas only one-third feels the same for girls. Eccles & Davis

(2005) describe that probably the most prominent and direct explanation of the parents

education and their childrens academic achievement relies on the assumption that parents learn

something during schooling that influences the ways in which they interact with their children

about all learning activities at home. Kasari et al. (1999) examined the effects of age, and current

educational placement on parents perception toward inclusion for their child and found that

diagnosis did make a difference in parent attitudes towards inclusion.

Do & Mancillas (2001) Parents educational expectations of their children have a strong impact

on childrens academic achievement. Parental expectations of childrens academic performance

have been shown to positively correlate with childrens grades. Qadiri & Manhas (2000), 43%

parents thought that children get multiple benefits from early childhood education. 25% of

parents emphasis on the need to develop pre literacy skills. According to them children mustfirst learn early literacy concepts as it could help them to face the later years with more

confidence and ease. Parents perceive that apart from learning all such foundational skills

children develop ability to communicate with others and also express their feelings and ideas

with each other.

Nancy et al (2001), Parents have greater confidence in boys to take decisions on important life

matters as compared to girls. Many parents feel that young people have the right to make

decisions; however, they are not sure about their capability to do so.Academic achievement is

additionally influenced by childrens perceptions of their parents educational expectations of

them. Children are usually aware whether adults have high or low expectations, which influences

academic achievement (Eggen et al, 2001).

An injection of investment in education, particularly in the expansion of technical and vocational

schooling, some of the parents want their children also got technical skills apart from academic


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this would improve the productivity of the labor force, allow education to adapt to new

technologies more readily, accelerate personal development and thus boost the national

economy. (Athanasou et al, 2001).

Dempsey & Sandler (1997), describes the main reasons for parental, teacher and school

involvement, seeing this involvement as an important part of the school system that functions to

create positive outcomes for children of all ages. In particular, parental involvement is

considered the most important influence on a student's progression through education and related

development that has major outcomes for child learning.

For children education Institutional forces have also a significant effect on the future pathway

navigated through secondary school education. This includes the status of secondary education,

streaming methods and points of transition within the education system as well as the

development of the secondary school curriculum (Menon, 1998).

Harkness et al (1991) Children at preschool stage need to be encouraged to develop positive

attitude through child to nature and the child to child interaction education is to be designed

carefully to provide wholesome growth and development of children. Shabnam et al (2003) find

that Parents perceive Preschool education plays significant role as it helps children in successfulcompletion of primary education. It provides the foundation for all around development and

enables the child to understand various issues.

Graff & Davies (2008, September) Childrens use of Internet has some positive effects such as

access to information, communication, support to education and individual development.

Additionally, it is asserted that childrens Internet use also has some negative effects such as

exposure to violence and pornography. Yan et al (2002) Parent involvement is linked to

childrens total learning. The greater parent involvement in childrens learning positively affects

the school performance including higher academic achievement.

Parents believe Internet has negative effects on children in terms of content, individual,

psychological and physical aspects. According to the parents views, the most negative effect of


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Internet use is found to be related to content aspect since the Internet allows easy access to

pornographic content (Watson, 2005). Most parents want their children to work for economic

gain. More than 75 percent reported that young girls should work to supplement their families'

incomes, and somewhat surprisingly, the proportion is higher in rural areas (Sathar, 2002)

DATA & METHODOLOGY

This research was conducted through self administered questionnaire distributed among 100

parents with varying age, gender, monthly income, profession, language, residential area

(urban/rural) and education in Sukkur district. In this research convenience sampling technique

was used. The questionnaire included scaling questions with different levels of

agreeableness/disagreeableness or neutral. Collected data was analyzed with the help of SPSS

and output presented in this report is in the form of Tables and Graphs.

The sample of the parents from Sukkur district might limit the findings to the other areas of

Pakistan. Even though we made an attempt to minimize the potential bias by focusing on the

wide range of demographic segments in the sample (see Table # 1), but these selected parents

might have unique and distinctive perspective on the issues.

Table #1.Demographic Characteristics of Respondents

Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents

Frequency Percentage Frequenc Percentage

GENDER Monthly HOUSEHOLD


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RESULTS & DISCUSSIONS

All survey responses were recorded into SPSS according to participants coded numbers;

response frequencies and percentages were then obtained. To examine parents and childrens

educational expectations, the following questions were respectively used in the data analysis:

why you want your child to get education? Why you want your daughters to get education?

INCOME (Pak Rs :)

Male 72 72 Minimum 6,000 4 4

Female 28 28 6,001 - 12,000 10 10

12,001 18,000 13 13

18,001 - 24000 20 20

AGE 24,001 30,000 22 22

25 35 18 18 30,001 36,000 8 8

36 - 45 23 23 36,001 42,000 6 6

46 - 55 50 50 42,001 48,000 1 1

Above 55 9 9 Above 48,000 16 16

Educatio Profession

Metric 5 5 Government Employee 44 44

Intermediate 6 6 Private Employee 25 25

Bachelor 40 40 Self Employee 25 25

Masters 38 38 Any other 6 6

Mphil 6 6

PhDs 5 5

Language Urban/rural

Sindhi 80 80 Rural 45 45

Urdu 13 13 Urban 55 55

Punjabi 4 4

Balochi 1 1

Any other 2 2


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what skills you perceive your children got form education? And likewise the questions are given

in the questionnaire.

Demographics

Gender

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid female 28 28.0 28.0 28.0

male 72 72.0 72.0 100.0

Total 100 100.0 100.0

The mean of gender is 0.72, the median of gender is 1 and mode is also 1.

Age

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid 25 - 35 18 18.0 18.0 18.0

36 - 45 23 23.0 23.0 41.0

46 - 55 50 50.0 50.0 91.0

above 55 9 9.0 9.0 100.0

Total 100 100.0 100.0

The mean age of the respondents is 2.5 which is that most of the respondents are 40 years

old on average. The mode is 3 which shows that frequently occurring age of respondents is lying

in between 46 to 55 which is also shown in commutative percentage column in above table.


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Education

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid Matric 5 5.0 5.0 5.0

intermediate 6 6.0 6.0 11.0

Bachelors 40 40.0 40.0 51.0

Masters 38 38.0 38.0 89.0

Mphil 6 6.0 6.0 95.0

PHD 5 5.0 5.0 100.0

Total 100 100.0 100.0

The mean education of respondents is 3.49 which show that on average they are

bachelors and masters. Whereas median and mode is 3, which shows that most of respondents

are bachelor.

Language

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid Sindhi 80 80.0 80.0 80.0

Urdu 13 13.0 13.0 93.0

Punjabi 4 4.0 4.0 97.0

Balochi 1 1.0 1.0 98.0

any other 2 2.0 2.0 100.0

Total 100 100.0 100.0


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The mean of the language of respondents is 1.32 which shows that on average they are

Sindhi and Urdu speaking, whereas median and mode is 1 which also tells that frequent

respondents are Sindhi.

Profession

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid govt: employee 44 44.0 44.0 44.0

privateemployee

25 25.0 25.0 69.0

self employed 25 25.0 25.0 94.0

any other 6 6.0 6.0 100.0

Total 100 100.0 100.0

The mean of the Profession of respondents are 1.93 which shows that on average they are

govt: employee and private employee, whereas median is 2 which depicts that more people are

private employees, and mode is 1 which represents frequent respondents are government

employee.

Monthly income

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid

minimum 6000 4 4.0 4.0 4.0

6000 - 12000 10 10.0 10.0 14.0

12000 - 18000 13 13.0 13.0 27.0

18000 - 24000 20 20.0 20.0 47.0

24000 - 30000 22 22.0 22.0 69.0


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Graph#1

Research reveals that almost all parents wish their children to be a good human who may

work for the welfare of society and develop mental attitude towards practical life. In response to

one Question asked from respondents for sending their children abroad to earn money, 40%

agreed and strongly agreed while below 10% disagreed. Because of unstable market conditionsand benefit of exchange rate, parents wish their children to go abroad and earn handsome amount

of money.

30% of the parents strongly disagreed and 23% disagreed that their children should take

part in politics. Research also explores that parents do not expect and perceive their children to

manage their own family business. Most of the parents prefer their children to get high income

and status job rather than managing and expanding their own business.


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strongly disgree

disagree

neutral

agree

strongly agree

Graph# 2

When parents were asked their expectation and perception about their daughterseducation, their response was somewhat different than they expect from their Sons.

15% of the parents wish their daughters to get high income job and financially support

family 15% remained neutral whereas 30% disagreed and 25% strongly disagreed for daughters

to get a high income job. 90% of the parents remained neutral for their daughters to get education

so that they may be part of educated society and improve their awareness. Some of the parents

also agreed that because of good education daughters get married in good families.70% parents

strongly that educated mothers take care of their children in good way.


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strongly disgree

disagree

neutral

agree

strongly agree

Graph#3

It has been significantly noted that education develops soft and hard skills in candidates.

Almost 80 to 90% parents perceive that education develops basic reading and writing skills in

their children along with decision making ability based on acquired knowledge. It seems from

research that only 20% of the children make their own carrier choice decision as strongly agreed

by their parents, the rest of the children is highly influenced by their parents expectations and

desires in their career choice. Only 20% of the parents strongly agreed that children develop

entrepreneurial skills by getting education.

CONCLUSION

Education is important for development of any nation in long term. This is only way to

survive in todays fast growing age. Providing education to children is responsibility of parents.


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This responsibility greatly depends upon parents perception. Their perception shapes children

attitude towards education. This study investigates what parents think and expect from children

when they get education. Majority of parents expect that by getting education they would

increase standard of living. Most of parents were of opinion that education makes a good human

being and in the result society improves.50% parents agreed and strongly agreed that they expect

their children to go abroad and earn money. Parents do not wish their children to manage their

own family business but get a good job. Most of parents have job orientation perception

regarding education. In Sukkur area parents are still hesitant to send their daughters for higher

education. They do not expect their daughters to earn money and get high income job. Parents

perceive their daughters education to be conducive in running house affairs and growing children

with care some of parents viewed their daughters education to be good for their marriage in good

families. 80% to 90% parents perceive education to be helpful in making effective decisions.

Whereas career choice decisions are not made by children but parents have greater influence on

it as reported by parents.45% parents also responded that youngsters do not learn entrepreneurial

skills while getting education till they come practically in business and put their hands into it.

RECOMMENDATIONS

After going through research findings, we recommend that;

1. Parents must rectify their perception about the purpose of their children education.Parents should expect their children to learn more and more because if they go for excellence,success will follow them.

2. Majority of parents are not in favor of politics for their children which our youngblood can change the lot of nation. So if young blood do not go into politics, decision, laws and

policy making would be ineffective.

3. 70% of parents perceive that their children cannot make right career choicedecision. But what is needed is no interference of parents in career decision. Let children decide

at their own as per their interests, inclination and capabilities.


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4. Parents should encourage the spirit of entrepreneurship in their children whichthey normally discourage. Getting job should never be purpose of education but becoming good

human, self reliant and productive for society should be priority.

5. Parents should not limit their daughters education to secondary level rather allowthem to get higher education and play their role in society.

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Eliophotou, M. (1997). The demand in higher education in Cyprus': An Educational Policy

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Documents

Parents Perception