Abstract:
Many parents are not involved in the academic progress of their children hence this study sought to examine the influence of parental ownership on management of academic performance in Imenti South Sub County, Meru County, Kenya. To explain how exactly parent engagement strategies influences the student academic performance, Epistels theory and Bronfen Brenners Ecological Theory were used. The study adopted a mixed methodology approach and concurrent triangulation design. The target population of the study was a total of 17568 respondents consisting of 16800 students, 48 school principals and 720 teachers. Stratified sampling was used to get the 48 principals and purposive sampling to get 720 teachers and 64 students. Data was collected using questionnaires and interview schedules. Piloting of the research instruments was done in10% of the sample size in the neighboring Igembe Sub-County. Validity was measured by face and content validity while reliability of research instruments was checked through test and retest method, reliability coefficient was computed using Pearson Product correlation coefficient where a coefficient of less than 0.07 was deemed dependable. Qualitative data was analyzed using themes and presented using narratives while quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 21 and data presented by way of statistical abstracts like pie charts, bar graphs and frequency tables. Results showed that one of the major reasons that students were not performing well in their academic programs is because many parents are not involved. There is need for increased parental engagement through volunteering, ownership, guidance and support to help improve learner’s performance.
