Parental Involvement and Children’s Participation in Pre-Primary School in Mlolongo Slum of Machakos County, Kenya

Children who access holistic, quality Early Childhood Development Education services have a better start in learning, and are better prepared for entering and staying in primary school. However, many children are missing out on the stated benefits of early childhood education since a large percentage of the pre-primary children are not attending the early childhood education programmes. The aim of this study was establish how parental involvement influences children’s participation in pre-primary in Mlolongo Slum. This study adopted the culture of poverty view by Osca Lewis. The study adopted a descriptive survey design and employed both qualitative and quantitative methods in data collection and analysis. The study employed simple random and purposive sampling to obtain the study sample. The target population in this study was 30 head teachers, 68 pre-primary teachers and 1466 parents in the thirty schools in Mlolongo slum in Athi River Sub-county. Simple random sampling was employed to select 9 schools. The head teachers in the sampled schooled were purposively selected for the study. Simple random sampling was used to select 68 pre-primary teachers and 440 of parents who had children in the 9 pre-primary schools. The study used semi-structured questionnaires to obtain data from teachers and head-teachers, and interview schedules for parents. Piloting was carried out in two pre-primary schools within Mlolongo slum. The findings of the study revealed that most parents were either coming home late or leaving very early for work (mostly casual), meant that they did not have much time and concern for their children. The study concluded that parental involvement is linked to wide range of positive child outcomes such as school attendance, positive attitudes, social competence and good academic skills, parental engagement in children’s education acts as a gel that assist to make learning for children pleasant and encourages them to work. The study recommended that parents and donors to provide school meals to children so as to attract and retain them in school.