Abstract:
The Purpose of this study was to investigate the practices and challenges of Community participation
in general secondary school located in west gojjam zone. The research attempted these three basic
questions: What are the current practices and challenges of community participation in the academic
achievement of students’ performance?,How much community contributes to teaching- learning
process in terms of increasing enrollment and reducing dropout rate of students?, What are the
factors that hinder/ enhance community members to participate in secondary school academic
achievement of students? For this study, descriptive survey design was employed; both quantitative
and qualitative data were gathered through questionnaire, and interviews. There are six study
groups, which are selected by simple random sampling, purposive and comprehensive sampling
techniques those are166 (30%) of the teachers, 30(100%) of KETB members, 48 (100%) of PTA
members, 12 (100%) of principals and vic. principals., and 8 (100%) of secondary schools
supervisors and woreda educational experts filled and returned the questionnaire which is 647 of the
total samples. The collected data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages and standard
diversion to see the significant difference among the respondent groups. The major findings were,
The key participation areas are academic achievement of student of general secondary school were
low. Regarding to the factors that affect community participation, lack of commitment, Lack of
training or orientation, inappropriate time and place of meeting were found as the major hindering
factors. Thus, to improve the situation, allowing the community to participate actively to improve
academic achievement of student through PTA and KETB members, providing adequate training tomembers of PTA and KETB how to carry out their responsibilities.
