In her letter of November 29, 2011 to the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the States General, the Minister of Education and Science, Mrs. Marja van Bijsterveldt-Vliegenthart, advocates greater involvement of parents in the upbringing and education of their child.
Responsibility for good school development
The minister is of the opinion that parents should give priority to education and the transmission of values and norms and that, when their children go to school, they make time to supervise this crucial phase as best as possible. The responsibility for good school development lies not only with the school, but equally with the parents. She thinks this is so important that parents should, if necessary, work less to find time for their child.
In broad terms, I agree with the minister’s statement. When you are given the gift of having children, it is your job as a parent to feed, educate and guide them until they can handle life independently. Good training is indispensable.
The minister mentions a number of key points in her letter.
- parents and schools must work together to achieve better educational performance
- Parents and schools must jointly commit themselves to career orientation and school dropout
- Parents are not only involved with their own child, but with the school as a community
Improvement of learning performance
To improve academic performance, parents should make time to read to their child. The child must be given the opportunity to talk to the parents about his experiences. Social themes could be discussed together.
Parents know what is going on (at school) or what is bothering the child. And the child learns to form his own opinion. Nothing wrong with that, of course . When there is time and peace to do this (for example with a cup of tea, during dinner or during the bedtime ritual), it is a good thing, which only makes the bond between parents and child stronger.
How will this work out in practice?
It is difficult to see whether this actually happens in practice. There will be families in which children’s opinions are not asked. There will also be families where both parents work. When everyone is finally home, there is still a lot to be done before the meal is served and the children are in bed. Is there enough time and peace for a good conversation? Experience shows that when children want to tell their story and they are unable to do so at that moment, the story often never comes. The moment has passed.
The fact that the government wants to see more people in the labor market is at odds with this minister’s story.
Agreements with municipalities regarding pre-school and early childhood education
Because language development in young children is particularly important, the minister has made agreements with municipalities that they will do more to involve parents in preschool and early childhood education. Municipalities will encourage parents to do development activities at home and parents will participate in activities at preschool or early school. Agreements have been made about better guidance of children to early childhood education.
How does the minister envisage this?
This also sounds very positive. It seems to me to be a very labor-intensive process that must be focused on the individual child. Parents will have to do development activities at home and participate in preschool or early school themselves. Besides time, there is another aspect here. What to do if parents do not have sufficient command of the Dutch language themselves. Who then accompanies the child?
The school must address parents about their involvement in the school
The school must appeal to parents for their involvement by actively involving parents in the school and the development of the child, with extra attention to parents who are less involved in the school due to culture or background. In addition, the school must provide insight into the child’s learning performance and study progress, and into the quality of education at school.
I think this is already a task for the school and is already being done as much as possible.
Career orientation and school dropout
Parents and schools must jointly commit themselves to career orientation and school dropout.
This means that the school properly informs parents about further education. The minister also wants to use parents as internship supervisors or coaches. In my opinion, the latter will not happen on a large scale anytime soon.
Parents must be mobilized to prevent absenteeism and school dropout (SMS message to parents if child is absent). It does not seem new to me that a school informs the parents if the child is absent without reason. At least that is what the school should do now in all cases.
Involvement in the school as a community
Parental involvement is not only about involvement with your own child but with the school as a community;
- This involves making non-binding agreements that are recorded in agreements between parents and schools that both sign.
- for example about dealing with conflicts
- Parents have an exemplary role when it comes to respecting values and norms. But they also have an important task in supporting and respecting the authority of teachers and include this in their education.
- I think this has always been the case. It is part of education.
The minister also wants to involve other organizations such as municipalities and educational institutes and other social organizations that are directly linked to education in increasing parental participation.
The association I get with this is the so-called Community School. This is a partnership between parties involved with growing children with the aim of increasing the children’s development opportunities. Another goal may be to provide continuous and consistent care. This in any case includes education, but it can also include childcare, crèche, playgroup, sometimes even a child health clinic, sports, physiotherapy, culture, library. In principle, the child can be under a roof all day. I think it was once devised to relieve working parents under the guise of improving the child’s development opportunities.
However, the community school is not mentioned in the minister’s plea .
My conclusions:
- The minister has many ideals.
- The practical feasibility is not always realistic.
In my opinion, the school’s first priority is knowledge transfer. Secondly, the school looks at how the child is doing at school. Parents are regularly informed about this. If either party deems it necessary, consultations will take place about the child; School and parents together guide the student towards further education and possibly the career choice.
The school can communicate news and points of interest to parents via a newsletter.
Parents who want to be active at school in activities or in participation are also doing so now. Parental involvement cannot be imposed from above. I don’t think that works. Schools should not make this involvement mandatory. There are plenty of other, more creative ways to involve parents in the school in a fun way. A school can invite parents to receive the report together with their child. This way, the points of attention can be discussed immediately. A public music exam is organized every year at a school. The students perform for parents and family. In addition to the assessment of the students, this is in fact a (free) evening out for parents. The presentation of the profile papers by the students is the same. This is also how you get parents into the school.