Community involvement and quality teaching in early childhood development institutions in Soroti municipality

Abstract

Success of every education venture especially that related to early childhood education has 6een largely pegged to community involvement. This has been the case because schools are expected to fulfill the desires of the community through its activities. However, in a situation where the community is not appropriately or are varying engaged in the teacher training process, then the teachers risk being rejected in the community. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to establish the current level of community engagement, and the strategies to strengthen community involvement in Early Childhood Development (ECD) institutions in Soroti Municipality. This study was conducted in three of the five established ECD teacher institutions in Soroti municipality, the participants include proprietors, Parents-Teachers' association (PTA) members, Board of Governors (BOG) members, administrators, tutors students and local council members. The study adopted the cross-sectional survey design. And data was collected using questionnaires and interview guides and later analyzed descriptively. Results show that the community members directed student teachers where to get local materials from the school neighborhood, the institutional administration offered support by provision of different stakeholders in an endeavor to involve the community in guidance and counseling in different meetings in order to facilitate mentoring of student teachers In conclusion, parents/guardians and other stakeholders are currently in ECD institutions in different ways apart from monitoring institutional activities, parents and other stakeholder are involved in the provision of resources as a way of engagement in ECD institutions . This study recommended creative community engagement strategies used by institutions being mindful of the fact that quality and functionality of institutions is dependent on the community involvement in education. In addition to that, participants perceived that support could be provided by the establishment of conducive relationship and critical analysis of reasons for the provision of resources to ECD institutions as an important strategy scrutinize the different aspects involved.