Practices, Challenges and Opportunities of Local Communities’ Participation in Primary Education School Development: The Case of Awaro and Addis Ketema Primary Schools, Ambo Town, West Shewa Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Local people participation in the primary school development is very essential to improve education quality and make attractive environment. Therefore, the core objective of this study is to look on the practices, challenges and opportunities of participation of the community in development of their primary schools. This study was conducted in Ambo town on two selected schools, namely Awaro and Addis Ketema Primary School, randomly. The researcher followed a mixed research design where data collection approaches was joined with qualitative and quantitative methods and both probabilities sampling and non- probability sampling was applied through multi-stage sampling procedures. A total of 156 respondent households were selected randomly to respond to the questionnaire from different socio-demographic and –economic background. In addition, 45 participants were selected purposively from different population subset either participated in FGD or interviewed as KII. Observation is also another crucial data collection tool used in this study. The collected data, both primary and secondary data, were analyzed using SPSS version 26 for windows and interpreted and presented using statements, tables and diagrams such as pie chart, bar chart and histograms. Of the surveyed household respondents 75 (49%) were female respondents while 78 (51%) were male respondents, respectively. According to the survey results, almost all of the respondents correctly defined the concept of community participation and agreed up on its importance. The study also found that fund contribution, labor, provision of different resources and organizing and attending different events as the main practices of community participation in the development of primary schools in the study area. Similarly, the study identified low income, lack of secularism, lack of awareness, low level of initiation from schools and reluctance and lack of commitment as the major economic, political, social, and personal challenges hindering community involvement in the development activities of primary schools. In general, the research identified that only small proportion of the community members participate in development process of their schools. Therefore, more effort to improve the level of community participation in development process should emphasize.