Role of Parents in Remedial Pupil’s Academic Achievement

Abstract

The objectives of the research were to identify parents understanding on remedial class or in interchangeably, special remedial class, the relationship between parent’s involvement and pupil’s academic achievement, relationship between parent’s communication and the school and the relationship between parent’s background and pupil’s academic achievement. A descriptive survey method using a validated questionnaire (cronbach alpha, 0.944) was used to gather data from 35 respondents from two Tamil schools in Penang, Malaysia. The dimensions studied were parents’ knowledge about remedial programme, provision of learning atmosphere, interaction with children in the house, support towards their children’s involvement in school and lastly parent’s background. The analysis of the data showed the interaction with the children had the highest mean value, mean=3.69 (S.D. =0.74) and the involvement in school with mean= 2.93 (S.D. =0.60) was the lowest. Correlation variance analysis indicated a strong to moderate significant positive relationship between provision of learning atmosphere, interaction with children, support towards their children and involvement in school with increasing children’s performance in academic achievement. There was no significant relationship between parent’s education level, working hours and family income with children’s performance in school academic. Implication from this research is that irregardless of parents’ background and economic status they take initiatives to help their children with remedial problems at home and are willing to work with schools to their capacity. Teachers have to be studied too to look deeper into the issue.