Sustaining parental engagement : a challenge to Maltese education leaders

Abstract

In 2006, the Act to amend the Education Act, Cap. 327 made provisions to reinforce and enhance the current school-parent partnership and collaboration. The study examined the current partnership and collaboration between schools and parents in four Maltese colleges and the challenges that Maltese educational leaders face so as to reinforce, enrich, and sustain joint-working. Data was collected from a substantial number of interviews with the selected policy-makers, college principals, heads of school, and teachers; reviewing official documents and observing council of heads meetings. The convenience and purposive sampling methods were employed to select the required sample of interviewees. The results of the study indicated that the schoolparent collaboration showed proof of a fractured history, an area fraught with uncertainty given a turbulent period in the 1970s and 1980s.2 The research findings will illuminate the position that educators currently hold towards parental involvement in the education of their children, together with the issues and challenges that educational school leaders can face in sustaining a partnership with parents. The study seeks to contribute towards an understanding of these issues and challenges.