Who is Responsible for Student Failure – Parents or Teachers?

The question of who might be held responsible for failures in school, especially in primary to high school education, has generated endless debate on whose actions are to be held more accountable for the failure of students between parents and teachers.

Many educational research papers have pointed out a disturbing trend in education – more students are failing primary and high school education. And someone has to take the blame for this. Parents very often say this is the fault of the teachers. But the teachers don’t want to be blamed and they say parents are the ones at fault.

The focus of the evolution of education tends to view failure as a fault of the education system that is incompatible with the learning style of each student. However, learning style is often considered an outdated model of education, since recent evidence seems to debunk the existence of varied learning styles for students.

Factors Responsible for Failure or Success in School

There are several factors that may be responsible for the failure or success of students in school, including:

• Interest or flair
• Anxiety
• Neurodiversity
• Complexity or simplicity of learning material
• Complexity or simplicity of topics or fields
• Student-teacher relationship
• Parent-child interaction,
• In-classroom and out-of-classroom experiences.
• Learning Style
• Student-Teacher contact length

Learning style, parents pampering whimsical children, teachers not being pedagogical enough, how do we really know who is responsible for students’ failure in our schools?

Who is Responsible for Student’s Failure?

To know who is responsible for student failure in our schools, there is a need to understand the different roles parents and teachers play in shaping the failure or success of students. It is from this we can really decide who we might actually hold responsible.

Parents and teachers play different roles in determining how students perform academically. While most people view teachers as the ones who might affect students’ academic performance since they provide on-topic guidance, it is important to note that a vast proportion of the time most students spend out of the classroom is spent under parenting influences and this also can impact academic achievement for students.

Role of Parents

Parents function in important roles regarding the educational experience and impact on achievement for students. Below are the roles parents perform:

1. Provision of out-of-school and out-of-classroom learning experiences
2. Making available additional learning resources
3. Provision of recommended learning materials
4. Encouraging children to attempt and do homework
5. Maintaining children on a reasonable level of expectation
6. Ensuring adequate mental and emotional wellness of children
7. Provision of enabling learning environment at home

Role of Teachers

Teachers are the very pivot on which learning rests, and this is why they are considered highly important to the success or failure of students in schools. Very often, when the teachers are inspiring and highly engaging, the results are positive on academic achievement for students.

Below are the roles teachers perform in school:

1. Content structuring and distribution
2. Content delivery
3. Monitoring engagement and participation levels among students
4. Keeping attendance records
5. Creating pedagogical patterns suitable to students
6. Helping students learn adequately
7. Inspiring students to achieve higher performance
8. Mentorship and leadership
9. Seeking welfare-promoting classroom and out-of-classroom initiatives

Are Parents Responsible for the Failure of Students?

Contrary to some popular opinion, it is not certain whether parents alone can contribute to the failure of students. We have seen that there are several factors which are responsible for predicting failure or success. Although parents play important roles, the extent to which this role influences the failure of students cannot be said to be solely responsible for the failure of students.

Therefore, it is sufficient to say parents are not completely responsible for the failure of students

Are Teachers Responsible for Failure of Students?

Teachers play very strong roles that impact the academic performance of students on every level, but teachers alone are not responsible for the failure of students. While the personality, qualification and competence of teachers have been shown in research to influence and predict success for students, modelling failure in school as a function of teachers’ influence does not reflect the multi-dimensional nature of academic achievement.

Who is More Responsible – Parents or Teachers?

To a certain degree, teachers play more pivotal roles in the academic achievement of students than parents do. Therefore, teachers are often considered more responsible for the failure of students in schools. While it is not the conjecture of academic research in the education domain, some research evidence has shown that teachers play more significant roles in education and are more responsible.

Conclusion

Poor academic performance is an undesired phenomenon in education. As a result, there is an ever-growing attention given to answering the question of what or who is responsible for poor academic performance. The evidence presented in this article has shown that both parents and teachers are responsible, but teachers are more responsible because of the closer classroom roles they play in education.

However, in order to address the issue of poor academic performance among students, there is a necessity for improved parents-teachers collaboration in order to coordinate and facilitate an integrated approach to learning in the classroom and out of it.