Parent-Teacher Conference should be Made Mandatory

The two parties with the greatest responsibility for supporting their pupils’ education and progress should cooperate since education is crucial for helping youngsters develop into responsible adults. For the benefit of children’s education, parents and teachers should get together frequently to share information and work out issues that can prevent students’ holistic development and effective learning. Parent-teacher conferences can be very beneficial, but many parents choose not to participate.

An essential component of parental involvement in children’s education is attendance at parent-teacher conferences. This aids in learners education and holistic growth.

Despite efforts that are taken by schools’ management and societies’ leaders, some parents continue to stay away from parent-teacher conferences.

Due to the above reasons, parent-teacher conference should be made mandatory to ensure that all parents attend them.

BODY

Parent-teacher conferences are largely unattended by parents, which hampers liaison between the two parties (parents and teachers) and has adverse effects on children/student education for the following reasons

Parents’ attendance in these conferences constitutes an aspect of parents’ participation in student education. Statistics reveals that children whose parents participate in their education experience less behavioral problems, get higher grades and have an enhanced chance of transitioning to higher levels of education (Carol 13).

At the same time, parent- teacher conferences enable both sides to established personal link for communication that can assist close monitoring of students as they grow (Carol 12). School records mostly have names and contacts or sometimes images of students’ parents. However, these meetings enable teachers to know the faces of parents and establish other channels of communication that may be utilized later.

According to Child Trend Databank, these meetings also enable parents to learn about talents and special abilities that children may have. US systems of education and others across the world are designed to have learners spend a significant amount of their time in schools and away from their parents. Parent-teacher conference gives an opportunity for teachers to inform parents about talents and special capabilities students develop in schools. This enables parents to give more attention and resources towards the development of students’ talents.

Despite many advantages derived from parent-teacher conference and other means of parents’ participation in students’ education, a good number of parents do not attend them. In 2012, only 74% of parents in the US attended parent-teacher conferences (Trends 1). Overall, below 90 of parents attend these conferences, meaning that over 10 % of children between kindergarten and grade 12 do not benefits of parent-teacher conference discussed earlier (Trends 1). This is worrying and needs to be stopped. Most of the taken actions such ascreating awareness among parents have not improved the condition.

As we have seen from the above statistics, to ensure that all students benefit from parent-teacher conferences, it should be made mandatory for all parents to attend these conferences.

CONCLUSION

We have seen that that parent-teacher conference is important for students’ education as well as their holistic growth. In addition to assisting teachers and parents to discuss how to enable students to study, it also assists them to discuss ways of nurturing student’s natural abilities. It is also an important avenue through which parents can participate in their children’s education. The benefits include improvement of children’s behavior, better grade, and higher transition rates.

While there are a number of factors that may make it harder for parents from participating in parent-teacher conferences, parents should take all steps to ensure they are able to attend these events.

Works Cited

Trends, Child. “Child Trends Databank, 2012.” Web, 2014.

Carol Vincent Research Fellow in Education Policy. Parents and teachers: Power and participation. Routledge, 2013.