FACTORS INFLUENCING PARENTAL DECISION ON SENDING CHILDREN TO PUBLIC SCHOOL AT UNION COUNCIL WAHUR TALUKA SEHWAN SHARIF

Abstract

The qualitative study identifies the issues that would contribute to the decision of the male parents to enrol their children into public primary schools within Union Council Wahur, Taluka Sehwan Sharif, District Jamshoro, Pakistan. The purpose of research was (a) To discuss the impact of school environment on parental choice. (b) To investigate the influence of the teaching quality on parental choices and (c) To investigate the influence of the socio cultural factors on parental choices at public primary schools. With purposive sampling, the data collected was provided in the form of structured interviews of 20 male parents in 10 schools which were considered to represent the public schools. Local language (Sindhi) was used to conduct interviews, which were transcribed and analyzed proficiently at the thematic level. Ten core themes that affected the parental decision-making were highlighted during the analysis, among which there were poor infrastructure, teacher absenteeism, high school safety, financial difficulties, sociocultural beliefs, language barriers, and mistrust towards school management. Also the level of education of parents and community impact was identified to be very significant that determined the perceptions of school quality. The results indicate the need to employ policy implementations that are both structure-based and culturally-oriented and community-based in practices to enhance access and equity to schools in rural Pakistan.