BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

This research tackles the effect of Romania’s transition to market economy that leads to social
and economic alarming processes; and as a consequence created family imbalance and parents’
decreasing involvement in children education and school – family partnerships. According to the
research, a brief diagnosis of school – family partnership in rural education context indicates two
major possible risks; namely the quality of school – family cooperation that could be influenced by
the educational and financial low level of children’s families and second by the psycho – pedagogical
decreasing training of teachers. It is the researcher’s intention then to draw attention to the negative
influences of social economic changes in Romania on school – family partnership, especially in rural
area.

The objective of this research is to investigate the school – family partnership issue within rural
areas, in order to improve it by proposing an initiation program based on various new strategies to
be implemented in schools. These are based on social psychology research; as a human
relationship, teacher – parent relationship. It is also the researcher’s intention to identify the degree
of involvement, frequency and perception of parents in carrying out school – family partnership,
analyze obstacles and parents difficulties to contact the school/teachers and to identify the initiator
and the methods used in school – family partnership.

A survey was then conducted to 316 parents from two rural areas. Taking into account only
parents of students enrolled in secondary grades. On one hand, parents’ interest in children’s school
activities has decreased when children moved to secondary school; on the other hand, early school
drop has increased four times in secondary education, compared to primary education. It was stated
that the reason why rural area was the research locale because of three reasons: first, educational
achievements are lower in rural than in urban area, second, the number of children from poor families
and Roma families is higher in rural areas and third, the school from rural areas face the lack of
qualified personnel or a much higher migration of the personnel compared to urban schools. These
were all collected using focused group interview with teachers for the perception of obstacles
encountered when implementing the school – family partnerships and a questionnaire addressed to
children’s parents on their perception, intensity frequency, initiation, difficulties and strategies for
developing school – family partnership. The significant findings from the study were as follows:

1. Parents’ disinterest and their lack of responsibility towards child’s school activity were brought
about by their low level of education, their young age and their lack of maturity. Another possible
reason is that some of the parents work abroad and the children are raised by their grandparents or
other relatives. Therefore they are foreseeing that their children would follow them in the future, thus
the lack of interest towards local school.

2. From the parent’s perspective, the school is a mean to obtain a diploma that would allow their
children to engage in national and international labor market, losing sight of the fundamental role of
the school – that is to train people to become independent, responsible, adaptable and creative
personalities. The difficulties in establishing a school- family partnership is brought about by parents’
lack of time, lack of confidence in the educational system, hostile attitude, large number of family
members and health problems.
 3. Most of the investigated parents complain that they have no time for their own child or contact the
school because of work or house holding absorbs them totally.

4. Regarding the initiator of teacher – parents meeting, most parents demonstrated that the primary
role of the school is to cooperate with the parents. The researcher observed that education is an
exclusive task of the school and the family does not consider itself an essential player in the process.

5. The forms of school – family relationship have remained traditional; most parents see it as a mere
meeting with the teachers. This is because teachers are already loaded with school works, and they
no longer have the time, energy and willingness to collaborate with parents, thus traditional methods
are also applied.

The research ended with a recommendation to have a training to resolve school – family
partnership issues for both parents and teachers. They recommended that teacher’s attitude should
be positive, open, flexible, based on trust and respect for the experience and views of parents.
Reducing the norm of teaching and involving the staff in secondary education services will also help
ensure the facility and efficiency of the partnership with families.

LESSONS LEARNED

So what are my learnings from this article, first, educational partnerships are needed the
provision of quality education. This holds true even for school – family relationships. Second, an
optimal relationship between the school and family will not only benefit the students, but as well as
the institution. Effective ‘school – families’ partnership requires a strong commitment from both
parties. This is to ensure that the said relationship can help the students reach their full potential in
school. But for this to happen, efforts must be exerted by schools to reach out and build genuine
relationship with their students’ family. Third, families must understand that ‘educating’ their children
is not only the school’s responsibility. Cooperation and collaboration is the key to make the intention
work. Lastly, there must be a sustainability program attached to the intention to develop any kind of
educational partnership. This kind of program must outlast the administrators, teachers, parents,
students and all educational stakeholders in the institution.

Reference:
Margaritoiu, Alina and Eftimie, Simona (2011). Some issues concerning school – families
partnership. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences pp. 42-46

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