The Nature of Parental Involvement in the Schooling Process in Katsina State

Parental involvement in the schooling process of their children seems to be a neglected research area especially in primary schools of Katsina state in Nigeria. Parental involvement as envisaged by Donald, Lazarus and Lolwana (2006) for purposes of transformation cannot be overemphasized by both parents and teachers in schools. Therefore, parents have a great influence on the schooling process of their children. The purpose of this article is thus to explore the nature of parental involvement in the schooling process of their children. The research method used in this study is qualitative method. The method would facilitate detailed understanding of the nature of parental involvement in the schooling process of their children in primary schools of Katsina state in Nigeria. From this study, it is evident that there is a lack of parental involvement in the schooling process of School B SB. That is there is a low level of meaningful contact between the school and parents. Apathy exists on the side of parents, low expectations on the side of the head teacher and teachers, and an organizational structure facilitating parent-school interaction is lacking. This will thus contribute to a lack of successful academic achievement of children in the school. And for the School A the study indicated that parents were involved in the schooling process of their children which helps in bringing the successful academic achievement in the school.


Introduction
Parental involvement in the schooling process, mainly in Nigeria has been neglected.Many parents don't have time for their childrens' educational activities, the economic down turn in the nationrequires both parents (fathers and mothers) to engage in jobs and businesses unlike before, when the mothers stayed at home to take care of the children and see to their total welfare.The actual trend now with working mothers in Nigeria is to take their babies to school where there are day care facilities about six weeks after the birth of the babies.The children will grow up to start their primary schools there and while in school many parents don't have much time to visit the schools to see what is going on there.As a result the demand for parental involvement in the schooling process of their children has been left unscrutinized in Nigerian schools.Most of the studies about parental involvement in the Nigerian context concentrated in the southern part of the country which brings aboutan acute shortage of literature on parental involvement in the northern part of the country.This is the main reson why Katsina was chosen to be the case study so that the existant literature gap should be briged.
Family is considered to be the first place of contact for most children as soon as they are born into the world.Parents exert a lot of influence on the child by providing him/her with initial training.Therefore, home is where most learning begins and parents are the first and important educators of their children.
Epstein ' (1995) defined parental involvement as families and communities who take an active role in creating a caring educational environment.Many components of parental involvement were identified through research.In (1991) Moore identified parental volunteering in the schooling process of their children as one of the approaches to parental involvement.Flaxman and Inger (1992) came out with three ways in which parents are involved in the schooling process of their children.The ways are: 1. direct involvement in school management and choice.2. Involvement in special parenting programmes and 3. Providing support programmes.The common themes articulated by the researchers in the field of parental involvement had been summarized by Epstein's (1995) six typologies of parental involvement.The typologies include: parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making and collaborating with community.
Parental involvement, mainly in the western world, has increasingly been gaining ground (Aremu 2005).But, in Nigeria, many parents do not realize the importance of their roles in schools and both practitioners and policy makers do not know how to facilitate parental involvement in schools (Adeyemo, 2005).Research had shownthat the children whose parents are involved in their schooling process tend to have fewer behavioural problems and better academic performance (Adeyemo, 2005).In Nigeria, many parents are not involved in the schooling process of their children.It is a common sight in many African countries to see children of school age involved in street hawking and trading after and during school hours.This brings about poor academic performance, absenteeism, failure to do home works and assignments and misbehaviours in schools.This statement means that parents were not very often involved in the school work of their children nor even considered an integral part of the schooling process.Morgan, (1996) stated that the concept parental involvement means parents and teachers are working in a close partnership for the benefit of the child.Takanishi (1993) writes that parental involvement in the school forms a critical factor in a learner's educational success in all the schooling process.Kinsler (2001) supports the preceding statements by saying that when parents are involved with their children's learning they do better in schools.The Education White Paper 6 Department of Education, (2001) further states that parents provide opportunities for learning in homes and also have critical role as social partners in the schooling process of their children.
The aim of this paper is to explore the nature of parental involvement in their children education within Katsina state in Nigeria.Finally, parents and teachers can only contribute to the students' academic success if they work together as partners.This paper is demarcated in the proceeding sections as follows: theoretical framework, background of the study, the life of the child-in-Education, parental involvement in the teaching and learning of their children, research methodology, research design, data collection, findings and discussion, conclusion, recommendations and references.

Significance of the Study
This research is undertaken fundamentally as a study in parental involvement, specifically researching parental involvement in the schooling process for academic success.The study attempted to investigate the nature of parental involvement in the schooling process in the context of Katsina State.
This study is significant in the sense that it adds insightful information to the knowledge base surrounding parental involvement and its influence in the children's schooling process.Parental involvement in Nigerian context is regarded as a common challenge that must be further addressed to reach out to parents in all regions and economic classes.The study's findings presented valuable information to schools, parents, policy makers and educational planners.
The research is very significant in providing key insights and underpinning elements regarding parental involvement that enables the provision of enough literature and information that could meaningfully contribute to the field of knowledge and educational research.The study also helped in providing useful insights to school authority and policy makers for providing quality education in the State.More generally, this study also provided an understanding of the existing position of parental involvement in this part of the country.As such, the study is an effort to provide information on the process through which parents can be involved in the schooling process of their children.The findings from this study will potentially be useful for providing knowledge and understanding that contribute to the planning and developing of school, family, and community relationships to participate fully into the schooling process of students and help them to succeed in life.(Nkromah, 2007).Katsina is located 160 miles east of the city of Sokoto, and 84 miles northwest of Kano, close to the border with Niger.As of 2007's Nigerian censors, Katsina estimated population was 5792578 according to National population commission of Nigeria.The city is the center of agricultural region producing groundnuts, cotton, hides, millet, guinea corn, and mills for producing peanut oil and steel (Nkromah, 2007 ).In the area of primary education Katsina State is not left behind, it has a total enrolment of 430, 000 pupils in 1,792 primary schools with a staff strength of 11,716 teachers.

Katsina State as a Background of the Study
At this stage, the researcher feels it fits to describe the location of the two schools involved in the study settings with an aim of understanding, supporting or opposing the argument within this study.The first school of the study (SA), is one of the high performing schools in Katsina with an enrollment of 1074 both males and female pupils in 2010-2011 session with breakdown of 528 males and 546 females.The school has 35 teaching staff members and 05 non teaching staffs with 11 classrooms.The school was established in the year 1988 with one session and in the early 2002 it is divided into morning and afternoon sessions, and also in 2006 it is remerged into one school.The second school of the study school B SB is one of the low performing schools in the state.The school was established in 1961, its enrollment started with a single classroom containing forty five pupils who were the pioneers of the school.The school is located in the western direction of Katsina town.The school has an enrollment of 1425 pupils containing both males and females with 26 teaching and non teaching staff members.The school has 10 classes and four staffrooms.

Theoretical Framework
The framework within which this study is based on is Joyce Epstein's (1987) theory of overlapping spheres of influence which brings about families, schools, and community collaboration in the year (1995,2004,2006).The paper investigated the nature of parental involvement in the schooling process in Katsina state.In this paper Epstein's theory of overlapping spheres of influence was used in investigating the nature of parental involvement in the study area so as to establish a strong partnership that will influence the schooling process of children and assist them to succeed academically.The theory indicates that students succeed at high levels when the internal and external models of influence intersect and work to promote success in the school.The external model postulates that students learn and achieve more success when the internal context in which they live (e.g., home, school, and community) work together to support and enhance academic success.The internal model describes the interactions interpersonal relations and patterns of influence that occur between individuals at home, at school, and in the community (Epstein, 2002) these interaction can occur at an institutional level (e.g., the school inviting family to parents day) or at an individual level (e.g., parent teacher conference) (Epstein 2002).(Epstein, 1995: Epstein & Sanders, 2006).This implies that parental involvement in in the schooling process of their children can be viewed as an important concept that has a positive connotation, as it leads in most cases to the successful mastery of tasks jointly done by the teacher, learner and parent.The concept parental involvement in this study implies that chances are given to parents to support the school and teachers, making them more effective in reaching learning goals Barton and Drake (2002).

Child and Schooling Process
The life of the child in his/her schooling process needs to be discussed because without the child, there is no any meaningful teaching and learning that will take place in the school.Therefore, the life of the child in the schooling process refers to the child's initiatives and active participation in the teaching, learning, and development.It is important to answer the question: Who is the child as stated by Bender (1994), because this determines the viewpoint of parents for the choices of approaches to make in order to improve their involvement with their children.It is, therefore, important to note that parents play an important role in the schooling process of their children.Because, without their teaching and support, children would not actualize their proper potential nor develop into fully responsible adults.This is supported by Wood (2003) who mentions that there is correlation between parental involvement in the schooling process of children and their academic success.Parents want to see their children supported educationally, but some parents because of their tied working schedules are unable to do so.For example they are always bussing to and from work daily, coming back late when their children are asleep, leaving their children's schoolwork unsupervised.Their lack of support will in turn encourage the child to withdraw from learning tasks and this paves ways for the child's inadequate cognitive development which bring about poor performance academically.
In support of the discussion above, Meintjies (1992) maintains that parents should contribute to creating an optimum educational environment at home, at school, and in the community.Parents are an integral part of schooling and their parental participation is central to the teacher's professional performance in the classroom.Therefore, it is reasonable to state that parents are responsible for home learning whilst teachers are responsible for school learning.It should also be noted that there are parents who due to occupational demands are always away from home or due to marital problems create an inhibiting educational climate causing a feeling of anxiety and insecurity to their children.This behavior might cause some stumbling blocks that lead to children's poor performance at school.It is apparent from the above statement that parental involvement plays a vital role in the schooling process of their children; therefore their involvement should further include mutual trust, love and co-operation between the school, home and community.The school should consult with the parents and informing them about values and norms of the teaching and learning in the school setting.Kelly (1990) argues that parental involvement in schools has long been heralded as an important ingredient in children's academic success.Meintjies (1992) further suggests the following areas of involvement, namely that parents should participate in school governance, attend classes and school meetings, keep up to date with their children's progress, monitor homework and instill discipline.In supporting the above ideas, it can be claimed that parental involvement in the schooling process is crucial.This means that different learners are presented with united and uniform skill of learning when teachers and parents work together as partners.

Parental Involvement with Gardner's Theory of Instrumental and Integrative Motivation
It should be pointed out here that, parental motivation has an indirect impact on the schooling process of their children Gardner (2001).By this, he means the complex of social and personal variables that learners bring to influence their learning process.Examples include the society in which they live culture background, values and beliefs of learning, and personal family background.In this paper, this learners' motivation mainly refers to parents' attitudes and involvements in the schooling process of the children.Gardner and Lambert (1972) identify two types of motivation that are relevant to children's learning process they include integrative and instrumental motivation.They refer to them as two orientations and two extreme of a continuum.At one extreme, the integratively motivated children wish to learn in order to become part of a particular group.They want to integrate themselves into the culture of the learning in school.At the other extreme learners wish to acquire knowledge as a means for attaining instrumental or utilitarian goals such as furthering their career, getting a nice jobs and so forth.
Inview of the fact that Gardner's model is based on instrumental and integrative motivation in the learning process, and parents use it to increase their beliefs in the value of learning, and through orientations it has impact on learning motivation of the children.This correspond the views of Gotteried, Fleming, and Gotteried (1998) and support their concept that parents' involvement is a key factor influencing dhildren's development of motivation.Thus, parents' roles of motivating their children to learn cannot be ignored.The parental encouragements indicate the kind of beliefs parents have in their children and it will serve as a motivating factor to them.In essence parental views on the importance of their children's learning learning motivate them to get involve in their schooling process and help towards their success academically.

Research Questions
This paper tries to answer the following research questions.
1) What is the nature of parental involvement in the children schooling process in Katsina State, Nigeria?
2) How does parental involvement in the schooling process of their children contribute to academic success of their children in Katsina state of Nigeria?

Research Methodology
In this study the researcher opted to use a qualitative approach because the researcher wished to obtain a more detailed understanding of parental involvement in the schooling process of their children.According to Neuman (2000) qualitative research method is preferred because of its descriptive nature, colorful details whereby its characters are unique rather than formal and neutral to the statistics.Mertens (1998) adds that qualitative research studies the phenomenon in its natural state and tries to make sense out of it.Strauss and Corbin (1990) describe qualitative research as any type of research that produces findings or results by not using statistical methods.

Research Instruments
In quantitative study, a variety of instruments can be used for gathering data, such as surveys, tests, and questionnaires (Hatch, 2002).Qualitative study, however, focuses on meaning in context, which necessitates an instrument for collecting data that is sensitive to its underlying meaning (Merriam, 1998, p. 1).It follows, therefore that it is the researcher in qualitative study that will choose the instruments by which data are gathered.This field of thought is built upon from human capacity to think, reason, feel, participate in society-the identical qualities needed by qualitative researchers to "make sense of the actions, intentions, and understandings of those being studied" (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992;Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983;Lincoln & Guba, 1985;Spradley, 1979).The instruments for data collection in this paper consisited of interviews, observations and school records.The study imployed the use of open ended interview questions, which contain 15 questions for parents, 10 questions for teacher, and 10 questions for students.The interview protocol is developed by the researcher and vilidated by the experts.The data collection methods used in this study are important because they enhance the trustworthiness of the data.This is supported by McMillan and Schumacher (2001) when stating that data collection method may yield and increase the credibility of findings.

Subject Informant of the Study
The overall respondent/ participants used in this study were 32 participants.The actual participants were 8 students as recommended by Morse, (1994) that in qualitative study the number of participants should be between 6-9.In addition to the actual participants of the study their parents and teachers also made part of the participants so that the data collected from them was used in addition to that of the initial 8 participants.These participants came out from two primary schools.The schools were sellected from Katsina metropolis base on the performance of their students in the last concluded entrance exams.The school that took first position and the one taking last position were selected for the purpose of the study.Purposive sampling was used in selecting the participants in order to gain insightful, thick, rich information (Patton, 1990).

Ethical Considerations
Ethical considerations are an extremely important aspect of qualitative research.The present study takes it necessary to engage in ethical practices.Based on this the researcher adhered to the following ethical measures: 1) Permission to conduct the research was obtained from the Universal Basic Education Board Katsina in Katsina state of Nigeria.The Universal Basic Education Board Katsina Permitted the researcher to conduct his study in the two selected Primary schools.
2) Consent forms, together with an information letter which included detailed information on the purpose of the research and how data will be collected was given to the participants involved in the study.
3) The study employed all the reasonable measures to ensure that the participants were protected from harm as a consequence of this research.
4) The study protected the anonymity of the schools and that of all the participants in the study.
5) In the process of interviewing audio recordings were made with the permission of the participants in order to capture their responses.
6) The participants of this study were informed that participation was voluntary and that they can withdraw from the study at any point, without any penalty.

The Findings
The process of data analysis adapted from Terre Blanche et al. ( 2006) was followed and is described as: the data consisted of transcribed interviews; data was constantly reviewed for new emerging points, important points were highlighted, codes were allocated to relevant points, codes were then sorted into categories and these categories were then interpreted in the proceeding section.

The First Research Question
What is the nature of parental involvement in the schooling process of their children?

The Nature of Parental Involvemen
The nature of parental involvement in the school practices of Mohd Dodo Ibrahim Science model primary school (SA) and Sararin kuka primary school Katsina (SB) is clearly shown in the activities of the schools.This fact has been clearly established through interview participants' responses, school records and the researcher's observation on the situation in the schools.
However, when the researcher asked the students how their parents get invoved in their schooling process, the students provided almost the same responses.All the students' participants from SA indicated that their parents give them encouragement in different ways, mostly through their words.Student 01(SA) responed, that his parents encourage him to do his best through their words.Student 02 (SA) responded in the same way about her mother's encouragement stating, "My mom always stresses the importance of Education, she always advise me to work hard so that i get good education."Student 03(SA) stated that his parent are always curious about his schooling activities.Student 04 (SA) my parents tell me that I am capable of overcoming any life challenge.
In the case of SB, student 01 (SB) indicated that they need no any encouragement for them to perform well in the school.He noted that his parents are fully confident in him as far as his studies are concern.Student 02 (SB) stated that he parforms well so that his parents will be proud of him, when they are proud of him he is motivated.Two students from (SB) mentioned that their parents encourage them to perform well so that they can proceed to secondary school.Others students indicated that perfoming well in school make their parents to engage them in trips and vacations which will make them happy.
Other students presented different reasons why they perform well in school.The major reasons that surfaced in their responses were to either be rewarded or to avoid punishement.Student 03 (SB) noted that his parents take him out for dinner when ever he does well in school.Student 04 (SB) stated tha he receives nothing to encourage him.The only thing is that his mother says she will take away his bicycle if he does not perform well in the school.
However, parents indicated that what they did to get themselves involved in the schooling process of their children was to give them encouragement through their words and actions.Parent 01 (SA) encourage her daughter to perform well so that she go to secondary school.Parent 04 (SA) encourage her son by telling him "the more you work hard the more you'll achieve success in life."Children who performed well get to secondary schools and got good jobs after school.On the other side, Parent 03 (SA) used himself as the most important example to his son.He tells the son that he works hard get a good results and used it to get a good job.Parent 07 (SA) agreed that it was his responsibility to help his child with his schoolwork.He stated that, "It is my work as parent to always check up on my chil every once and awhile."Although Student 04 (SA) noted that his mother encouraged him to perform well in school, and, in fact, at times she be the one to remind him to relax and take thing s easy.Parent 07 (SA) noted that her child is highly motivated to wrk hard in school.
Among all interviewed parents, it was only a few that saw the need to regularly involve in helping with their children's schoolwork.Parent 04 (SB) stated that the school of his child has expert teachers who are good in teaching parents has nothing to teach.Most of the participants from (SB) felt that it was important to always check the progress of their children through their school record books system that allows them to see both the performance and attendance of their children.
Except for a few instances, participants among teachers were not able to give some specific examples on the nature of parental involvement in their schools especially in school B. But in the case of school (A) at least three teachers were able to differenciate between the saying and action of parents with regard to their involvement in the school activities.Teacher 03 (SA) believed that some parents can talk the talk but they can not walk the walk.However, only one teacher respondent talk by stating, "I could probably invite some parents to discuss the shortcomings of their children and how they could intervene to help them."

The Approach to Involvement
When the researcher asked "what parents could do to get them more involved in the schooling process of their children, "both the parents and students were not able identify many concrete possibilities on this issue.Some students have the belive that their parents are as involved as they could be and there was no much more that they could do.Student 04 (SA) noted, "My parents are doing alot to help me when i need their help."A number of parents also indicated almost the same thing from their perspective.Another participant a parent of a high performing child, Parent 03 (SA), noted with proud that her son "Needs no help to get good results, he knows exactly what to do and he will usually do that without help from anybody."When asked if she could do more to involve herself in the schooling process of her daughter, Parent 03 (SB) said, I don't really think she needs that.This is a something that she has been handling on her own.
Three parcipants among the students believed that their parents are being more involved the way they wanted them to be and maintained that they were unrealistic in their expectations.Student 02 (SA) stated, "I always do my best to get good results, but some times is not enough for my parents they just keep on talking."Student 04 (SA) agreed that their parents have too high expectations he noted that, "If I take third grade my parents will have wanted me to take fisrt or second grades.They don't appreciate my effort sometimes." A few participants among parents noted that being too involved might have some negative impacts.Parent 03 (SB), who has a son in the low performing group, stated that said she was, in fact, thinking of lowering her involvement.Becouse she has been doing alot to get her poorly performed child improved.She believed that this parenting style was pushing her son away and therefore, he aurge her to back off.Parent 05(SB) gave her own clarification by saying, "There is a serious disagreement between me and my child.Before i did not listen to him, I start to give him attention to help him make choice when he needs.I believe he is matured enough to learned on his own and be successful." Although some few suggestions were offered by both parents and their children on how to improve the nature of parental involvement, teachers on the other hand, provided many suggestions.Some of their suggestions were very specific including: providing specific homework time schedules, proper attendance in the school meetings, talking to them, givin them encouragement, and increasing family time, encouraging the structure of the school and applaying the use of organizational techniques and school supports.Many participants among the teachers noted that the teachers should be role model and set a tone with children.Teacher 03 (SA) noted that they beleved that what is more important is to show some interest.Teacher 06 (SA) felt that what is important is to always send a message indicating the importance of taking time to listen.Finally Teacher 04 (SB) noted, "I have a belief that both the teachers and parents are to be a role model.
Similar to the aforementioned nature of parental involvement as indicated by the interviewees, the researcher's observation revealed the same data.Looking at the individual school both the observation and school documents showed that school (SA) open it's building to accommodate more parents.They have involved the larger community by soliciting volunteer help and necessary assistance from them through their effort of providing them an opportunity to visit the school, check the school activities, conduct classrooms observation and participate in PTA/PTO activities.During the process of researcher's observation the researcher was able to meet some parents coming to check the school activities, some go to class room to watch the teachers teaching give assessment on the teachers' performance, make instant corrections when they notice any mistake.
The researcher was also able to participate in some PTA/PTO meetings of (SA) during the meetings the researcher notice that about 75% of the parents were in attendance and all were egger to give their individual and collective contribution towards the development of the school.More so, the researcher goes through the visitors' book of the school in which he found the parents' visitors' pages almost full.The school volunteer list was also check by the researcher and the responses' of parents and community members were highly motivating.
On the other hand even though school (SB) is making effort to recover from a long time set back in family and community involvement, yet the researcher's observation indicated that the school is attempting to be nice to all outside communities by opening doors for them to be involved.The school administration is trying to introduce ways of involving parents and community members.The data in the researcher's observation indicated that parents in this school were not participating in the schooling process of their children.The researcher's observation has no record of any parent coming to observe classrooms or other activities in the school.When the PTA/PTO meetings were hold the attendance was very few and the main agenda in the meeting was involving family and community in the activities of the school.On the side of school records the visitors Book indicated poor visitation from parents and community members.The parents will only come to school when their children have some problems.In the area of volunteer list and other related records of involvement the school is zero.
The above discussions outline the comments of the interviewees regarding the nature of parental involvement.These opinions have placed the differing views of the various interviewees regarding the parental involvement in the schooling process of their children.This indicates that there are different perceptions about the ways parent involved in the schooling process of their children.
The following section discusses the diverse perspectives on how parental involvement contributes to the students' academic success.

The Second Research Question
How Parental involvements contribute to the student academic success?
The collected data of the study indicated that academic success includes high achievement, better attendance, fewer discipline issues, and motivation to excel in school and the entire life activities, regarding the way in which school, parent and community involvement contributes to the students' academic success, the schools facilitate students' academic success through classroom instruction, communication from the school to the parents and community members, inclusion of outside agencies and the alternative times provided for building relationship with relevant stakeholders that can fully participate and contribute their quarter towards providing success in the schools.

Parental Roles in Facilitating Academic Success
During the interview session on how parental involvement contributes to student academic success, the researcher begins by asking the interviewees to describe their individual perceptions on the relationship between parental involvement and student academic success.Teacher 03 (SA) was able to get it from both ends of the scale noting, "In my experience, the involved parents have children that perform well and uninvolved parents generally have children that need more help.Teacher 04 (SB) explained, "Children need parental help in their schooling process."On the side of students three participants from (SB) and two from (SA) out of the eight interviewed maintained that their performances were not as good as they are suppose to be due to the inability of their parents to contribute much to their schooling process.The parents of these students were divided when they were asked if they believe that the performance of their childrenwere as good as they are supposed to be.
The next question asked the teachers."How could involved parents contribute in the academic success of their children?"In answering this question teachers generally repeated their concern for better school parent communication, enlightening the parents on assisting their children with school work at home, participating on school activities relating to their children, and assessing their children performance and creating measures of improvement.Almost all the teachers believe that the schools SMS system perform a siginificant role towards updating parents on the school events.Other teachers noted their desires in seeing the administration of the school communicating school success.
Teacher 04 (SA) added, "Sharing the success story of parents will equally help."Although in their responses to this question most of teachers' respondents emphasise that administrators should provide ways to develop better communication with families and commity members, some provided a few other interesting and creative suggestions to be consider.Teacher 03(SA) suggested the need for teachers to put all supported teaching/learning materials on their school files for family, community and students to see and advise.In the opinion of several teachers, building family, school and community involvement programs is beneficial in providing student academic success.
On the (SB) side teacher 08(SB) suggested the idea of asking parents their opinion on how they assist students at home.Teacher 06 (SB) noted that: the school, family and community partnerships are great.The children have begun to see their how their parents contribute to their schooling process.Therefore, school administration should continue supporting these efforts.

Teacher Expectation and Academic Success
Another interview question asked parents and students on their opinion about teachers' expectation on how it affects the performance of the students.On their responses, students unanimously agree that teacher's expectations have effect on the students' performance.Student 03(SA) maintain that the high the teacher's expectations the higher the motivation of the students: "teachers praise students by telling them that their expectations are high, which means telling the student to work hard, and it motivates students to get better results."Student 02 (SA) described his opinion in a more personal way: "my teacher once told our class that everyone had an A results in the class.I thought about it that if my teacher thought that I was capable of getting A grade, then I had to do everything possible and get it."Student 05(SB) had another experience, "my teacher gives me encouragement to work hard in a very kind manner.I double my effort in the class and got good results." On the other hand, parents were less certain.Only three out of the parents' participants agreed that teachers' expectations affected their children motivation to work hard in the school: "I expect a teacher's motivation to make a difference" Parent 03 (SB)."Agreed that teacher expects students to work hard, so as to succeed academically" Parent 07(SB)."I believe motivation has a big effect" Parent 03 (SB)."I think that any good teacher should has expectations that reflect upon his children" Parent 06(SB) Most parents interviewed indicated that they were not certainor believe it mattered.Parent 05(SA) stated, "I believe that most teachers expect every student to perform well in their school.I guessed it depends on how it is perceived between motivating children and forcing them to do well in school.Parent 07(SA) noted, "I am not sure.I guessed it would depend on how the teacher works with his children".Parent 08(SA) commented, "Teachers have a great work to do, and they do their best with our children." However, all of the teachers' respondents noted that the expectations of teacher on any student motivate him to work hard and achieve in the classroom.Teacher 07(SA) was the most emphatic: "Yes absolutely.I believe that when a child hears that he can't do it and therefore won't do it".Teacher 03(SA) indicated the way teachers convey positive expectation to their students in the classroom."I do tell my children that they can do it.For example, when my children are about to take their common enterance examinationa I tell them, you should not worry.You are all going to get it.I believed this has a great impact on them."Overall, both teachers and students participants believed that the expectations of the teacher has a great impact on the student academic achievement.
Teacher 02(SB) has a focuse on a different type of student behavior in her response: "teacher can positively impact the students who think they are unsuccessful and make them to see chances of becoming successful."

Parental Encouragement and Academic Success
Another question asked the students to state things that their parents do to make them perfom very well in school?
The tallies in the following tables indicated the frequency of thestudents responses to the above question in each of the selected sites of the study.While the students' ansewers to the question look similar in many respects, the number of specific ansewers varied in each of the two sites.The data from the two sites, however, supported the research question reported earlier in the study that parental involvement in the schooling process of their children contributes to their success academically.This contribution is given through parental words in a variety of ways.Three of the total four responses from SA give identification on the students' perception of this parental encouragement.The SB responded similarly in 02 of their total of 04 responses.Both the two sites agreed as being rewarded by their parents for performaning well in almost the same number of responses, but the respondents of SB reported having more punishments for low performance.
However, most of students in the SB responded by stating the different roles play by their parents to get involve in their schooling process.On the other hand, three out of the total four students of SB noted that their performance might have been improved more if their parents rewards them for good performance, while one student respondent belived that administering a punishment might help towords improving their performance in the school.
In general, the responses to the two stated questions in the above, noted a uniformity of students' perception of the contribution of their parents towards their academic success.The major responses among students observed that their parents were being more positive in giving them all the encouragement to do their best.They also noted that their parents used verbal encouragement to make them work harder.For example, one of the students noted, "They advise me to perform well in my primary school so that I can get into a good secondary school."Other students reported their parents having physical involvement especially in administering rewards and punishement for good and poor performance in the school.However, regarding the perceptions of what parents could do to be more involved in the schooling process of their children so as to contribute to their success become more diverse between the two sites.A large number of the SA students stated that their parents were doing their best to make them improved and achieve more.While the students in the SB suggested many ways through which their parents could increased both their involvement and the encouragement given to them for good performance in the school.Basically, majority of the students' respondents in the SB noted that their parents could do better in their involvement.
However, the Data in the researcher's observation and schools document on the contribution of parental involvement to students' academic success from the two selected sites of the study revealed that: The children of involed parents perform well in the school, while the children of uninvolved parents need more help to improve.And also both the researcher's observation and school documents indicated that students in the two schools have a need to their parents help in their schooling activities.Without parental assistance the performance of their children will not be as good as they could have been.The observation and school document indicated that parents of SA are involved in the schooling process of their children both at school and home.This may be attributed to the higher achievement of the student in the school in which the school is rated by the Katsina Local Education authority as one of the best schools.In the case of SB the data indicated that parent there are not more involve, this has a serious effects on the academic performance of their children in which the school is counted among the low achieving schools in the state.
Lastly, the above discursions on the ways parental involvement contribute to student academic success base on the interviewees responses, researcher's observation and school documents in each of the selected sites of the study supported the research question reported earlier in this study that parental involvement in the schooling process contributes to the children academic success.

Discusssion
Content analysis as described by Dey (1993) is the categorizing of the primary patterns in the data.This means that categories or themes are developed from qualitative data.The present study developed some categories of parental involvement in the schooling process of their children, for example, Nature of parental involvement in each of the two schools, Collaboration among Parent, teachers, and Community members.

The Nature of Parental Involvement in the Schooling Process of Their Children
This research question of was design to explore the nature of parental involvement in the schooling process of their children, and how it contribute to the children academic success.The coded frequencies of the study indicated that about 94% of the parents and community members of SA are involved in the schooling process of their children.However, the results in SB indicated that about 31% of parents and community members that are involved in the schooling process of their children.
This result indicated that SA has higher number of involved parents then SB.The reason is that the greater the cooperation and support given to parents by a school, the higher would be the parent's involvement in the schooling process of their children both at home and at school.Thus, the results were in agreement with Lareau (1987), Reay (2004), Baker and Stevenson (1986) and Ho Sui-Chu and Willms's (1996) the studies support the idea that there is a significant relationship between the school's cooperation and parent's involvement in the schooling process of their children.
The attention and the support given to the parents by the SA in discussing the children's education, and conducting home visits enable the parents to understand the role and responsibilities of the school.It also enables the parents to understand every effort of the school in improving the educational attainment of their children.This is in consistent with the findings of Bartel (2010) and Zhao and Akiba (2009) who found that the school's cooperation encourages the parents to engage in various strategies of involvement in their children's schooling process.And it also supports the argument of Epstein (1995) which shows that the support and cooperation from the school is important to stimulate parental involvement in the schooling process of their children.This finding clearly shows that the support and cooperation given by the schools to the parents lead to strong partnership that could enhance the relationship between the school and the parents.As a result of this relationship, teachers should honor their skills and their leadership so as to enable the parents to share the responsibilities together with the school in involving in their children's schooling process.Moreover, the parents are more exposed to various strategies of involvement and encouraging their children at home and at school as a result of the effective cooperation between both parties to ensure the academic success of their children.
The authors mantained that valence, the learner's value of the learning outcomes, indicates the influence of parental encouragement on both integrative orientation and instrumental orientation.This is based on the existing culture beliefs of school A. Parents in school A often have both high expectations and significant influences on the academic performance of their students.At the same time, the children are usually willing to place parental values over their individual's wishes.Base on this the children are forced to learn because of parental beliefs concerning the advantages of learning.In other words, the effects of parental involvement appear to be greater than learners' efforts in learning, because they contribute to a sense of purpose and valence.What is more, previous research has found that the role of parental beliefs has been associated with children's intrinsic motivation and school performance (Aunola, Nurmi, Niemi, Lerkkanen, & Rasku-Puttonen, 2002).This suggests that parental encouragement plays an important role in the schooling process of their children.
The second question was design to explore how parental involvement contributes to students' academic success.The results in this question indicated that parent involvement in the schooling process of their children was pivotal in the educational process.The results further indicated that when parents are involve in the schooling process of their children they encourage them to perform well, help them with study techniques, motivate them through administering rewards and punishments, encourage them verbally and provide more encouragement that facilitate academic success.
These findings are in agreement with prior research.Epstein (2006) stated that partnerships activities were instrumental in maintaining the success of the current educational system.The Participants referred to the partnership between school-family and community as, "the key to the future success in schooling process"and"education is a top priority in any home."This assertion was further explain in the work of Armstrong Piner ( 2008) where she asserted that through parent and community involvement, schools may be able to provide the best possible education for the students by collaborating with families to achieve the goal of producing successful students.This also support the work of Badalament ( 2008) and James, (2007) in which they explained the findings from over thirty years of educational research indicating that parental involvement in the schooling process of their children have positive impact upon the academic success of those students.
Another findings from the research also established that children whose parents are actively involved in their schooling process are more likely to be successful in their education (Henderson, et al., 2002).In the same vein, some other studies reveal that parental involvement improves facets of their children education such as daily attendance (Epstein & Sheddan, 2000); student academic success (Henderson, et al.,2002 andEpstein,2001); behavior (Cotton & Wikelund, 2001;Henderson, et al.,2002 andEpstein, 2001); and motivation (Brooks, Bruno, & Burns, 1997).In general, effective family participation in schooling is considered to be a crucial component in the academic success of students (Adamski, Peiro, & Fraser, 2000;Stokes, 2009).
Based on the discussion above on the child in the schooling process, the researcher is convinced that parents should extend their involvement beyond the basic teacher/parent relationship.They should take an active part in the activities such as School Governing councils, parent councils, and act as volunteers in the classroom.In these ways, the focus of their involvement will widen and embrace also other children from other communities.This is important as such children will gain more knowledge and be aware of parental involvement in any educational setting as mentioned by Wood (2003).Contrary to the above views, it should not be forgotten that parental involvement is still a problem especially in most areas where there is a high rate of illiteracy and poverty.This is further evidenced by the existence of single parenting and child-headed families.In this context this means that parental involvement plays a role in the schooling process of their children.This is also substantiated by the research findings obtained by Munn (1993) when claiming that children whose parents are involved in their educational matters are more successful.Maden (2001) further states that if parents and children could work closely together and if parents could support their children, then this would help to raise their achievement.The statement implies that parental involvement has a positive effect on different learners' attainment of their goals.Borich (1996) writes that when parents and teachers become partners, not only can students' achievement increase but also parents learn about you and your school.This shared decision-making, partnership and involvement in schools' related matters.

Recommendations
The present study suggested that parental involvement is pivotal for a successful schooling process of our children.As a result, the following recommendations are offered by the study.Schools within Katsina should: 1) Enlighten parents that their involvement in the schooling process of their children is directly related to their academic success.
2) Communicate to parents the significance of parental involvement and create ways to enhance parental involvement practices in their schools which will bring about the formation of schools, families, and communities partnership.
3) Increase communication opportunities between school and home through introducing various opportunities and modalities that are imperative for involving all parents and caregivers in the schooling process of their children.

Conclusion
It is evident from this study that there is a lack of parental involvement in the schooling process of (SB) and this bring about a low level of meaningful contact between school and parents, and finally contributes to the lack of successful academic achievement of their children.On the other hand the results also indicated that parents in (SA) are involved in the schooling process of their children and this contributes towards the academic success of the children in the school.The present study therefore, shows that parents who do not provide a stable and stimulating home environment lay the foundation for an unhealthy, chaotic learning environment in their children schooling process.And this is the case in Katsina where many school children suffer from unhealthy and chaotic learning environments both at home and school due to their parental inability to provide a stable and stimulating environment for their studies.However, the present article has contributed to theory building by confirming the current theory of overlapping spheres of influence.Placing the nature of each of the schools described above within these overlapping spheres creates different pictures for each site.The experiences and practices at School B (SB) setting push the spheres away from each other as the philosophy and activities there do not encourage parent and community involvement.While at (SA) the experiences and practices of the parent group and the school push the spheres together as there is a strong philosophy and many activities that include and encourage parent involvement.
Finally, the article contributed to the body of knowledge by adding insightful information to the knowledge base surrounding school, family and community involvement and their influence on the children's schooling process for the attainment of academic success.Infact the findings of the paper fits other past studies closely, but the study is particularly significant compared to the previous studies in this field considering the fact that the geographic area has apparently not been studied for this topic before.Inaddition, the two selected schools of the study are different from other studies interms of their cultural, economic and religious background and the major difference between the two schools is that, school A introduce a program of home visit, this program helps teachers of the school to relate with parents, know their problems and their children problems, invite them to school at their free time, allow them to give their contribution, connect faces with names, esterblish positive relationships with family, show their care about the children to the parents, and give more confidance to the students.This is the secrat behind the academic success of school A students.
Nigeria has 36 states among them is, Katsina State which is a State in northern Nigeria.Its Capital is Katsina; it was created in 1987 from the former Kaduna State by the former Nigerian military head of state General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.The State is mostly Muslims, and Hausa people are the largest ethnic groups.Out of Nigerian's 774 local government areas 34 are in Katsina State

Table 1 .
Numbers of participant for the study