Analysis of Factors Affecting Parental Participation Towards Early Childhood Education Program

Articles Info ________________ History Articles: Received 06 December 2018 Approved 28 January 2018 Published 1 February 2019 ________________


INTRODUCTION
Law Number 20 of 2003 on National Education System Article 1 Item 14 states that Early Childhood Education (ECE) is an effort to provide guidance to children from birth to the age of six years through the provision of educational stimuli to support growth and physical and spiritual development so that children have readiness to enter further education.Schindler, et.al (2015) also suggests that ECE programs offer a promising mechanism for preventing early externalizing behavior problems and later antisocial behavior.It shows the importance of ECE to the growth and development of children.In this case, of course, parents has a big role to succeed the implementation of ECE.They are the first party to instill the values of education and have the most dominant interaction with their childen.They can also provide motivation, guidance and facilities for children for their level of education (Hendarti Permono, 2013;35-36).
Early childhood education has a principle that parents as exemplary so that they become the main and first actors of communication in childhood learning process.Sua, et.al. (2013) reveals that parental expectations for their children's learning and academic outcomes emerge as the dominant factor influencing the enrollment in primary schools.Therefore the PAUD Program must cover parents, community-based and formal preschool institutions.The influence from both parental participation and children's education is indicated by various research results that support the above statement.Voorhis (2003) states that students achieve high outcomes when their parents provide assistance in their homework.Other studies also found that parental participation in schools has a direct impact on student success (Harris & Goodall, 2008).Similar with this, Broh (2002) study concluded that parental participation affected the increase in academic score.
Thus, the principle of early childhood education urges parents as an exemplary as the main and the first actors of communication in ECE program.It is supported by Widiasih (2017) also emphasize that non-formal education service, such as Daycare should create good cooperation with parents at home in purpose of supporting children independence optimally such as toilet training.Related to this, Rolan and Marceau (2018) reports that parental differential treatment have been linked to increase externalizing behaviors in which paternal differential treatment was protective for more youth than maternal differential treatment: older siblings with low self-esteem who experienced paternal differential treatment exhibited decreased externalizing behaviors across adolescence, regardless of age difference.Moreover, Prendergast & MacPhee (2018) have foond some indication that parental scaffolding can promote children's persistence and later school readiness.The involvement and participation from parents will affect the success of ECE, so that the quality of education can be enhanced and in the future the quality of generation will be guarantee (Sutjipto, 2015;3).Therefore ECE program must cover parentsbased initiative and community as well as formal institutions of preschool.Barge and Loges (in Jafarov, 2015: 35) states that parental participation in education can be done in the form of (a) supervising children's tasks from school.They have to make sure that their child works all homeworks from school and give help if needed, (b) developing personal relationships with the teacher, if they have a good personal relationship with the teacher, they can have good attention to the child to support the teacher's treatment, (c) encouraging their child to take extracurricular activities.If they are unable to guide their children for academic things, then they should support their children to take extracurricular activities at school, (d) Improving collaboration with people around the school.The development of parent relations with the community around the school will escalate the success of the learning process.
The influence of parental participation towards children's education is indicated by research findings that parental involvement in schools has a direct impact on student success (Harris & Goodall, 2008).In line with this, Broh (2002) confirm that parental participation influences the increase of academic scores.Early childhood education program requires parents to act as school committees so that the education process run well.The parents participation influence the success of ECE program, so that the quality of education will increase and the future generation can be well-developed (Sutjipto, 2015;3).In line with this, Nugroho, et al. (2018) also point out educational level of the parents as the external factors that influence learner participation.
Moreover, parent participation is a real involvement of parents in an activity.Parent participation can be in the form of ideas, criticisms of building, supporting and implementing education.Therefore according to Gonzalez and Wolters (2006) that parental participation also reflects the extent to which parents are present and involve themselves in the lives of their children.Then, Nasruddin (2009) explained that the lack of parental love for children, would cause various difficulties in children, both emotional difficulties and in terms of children's intellectual development.Certainly, such a situation will be detrimental to the child's learning process in order to obtain the desired learning achievement.
Moreover, parent participation refers to a real involvement of parents in child's activity.It can be in the form of ideas, criticisms of building, supporting and implementing education.Gonzalez and Wolters (2006) explains that parental participation also reflects to the extent to which parents are present and involve themselves in the lives of their children.Similar with this idea, Nasruddin (2009) explained that the lack of parental love for children may cause various difficulties in children, both emotional difficulties and in terms of intellectual development.Certainly, such a situation will be detrimental to the child's learning process in order to obtain the desired learning achievement.In Nugraheni's (2014) study, it was found that the results that there were factors that influenced parental participation in PAUD institutions as a place for early childhood education, namely education/ knowledge, economic conditions, environment, and socialization.Currently, the parents awareness on ECE program has shown a positive escalation.Ministry of Education and Culture reports that in the period 2005-2011, there was an increase in the number of ECE enrollment from 21.2% (2007) to 34.54% (2011).The increase was also accompanied by the development of ECE in all regions of Indonesia.However, according to Suryani (2007: 2), there are several factors that can influence parental participation including the lack of community needs for ECE, deficiency of quality and quantity of ECE, low quality of ECE, lack of public interest or awareness from parents on the urgency of ECE and insufficient government policies regarding ECE.
Based on the researchers observation, it is revealed that there are two forms of participation, namely the passive role and acting one.The active role is by supporting, inviting others to expand the coverage and development and improving the outcomes.On the other hand, acting passively is they can accept ECE program but do not show any participation in the program implementation.Moreover, the observation shows some variation in the form of participation in early childhood education.It can be very meaningful to be furtherly investigated.
The pre-research observation data, it is also found that the number of children under five in Wonogiri Regency about14,005 children with the age of 1 to 5 years in details 7,044 of male and 6,961 of female.The data collection method was using a questionnaire.The data were analyzes based on Burhan Bungin (2003) in which the steps including data collection, data reduction, data display, verification and conclusions affirmation.The scale used is a rating scale or incremental scale in which the made size is subjectively in accordance with the choice of the respondents themselves (Suharsimi Arikunto, 2010).The form of participation is based on the Retnaningtyas (2015) study with the dimensions of policy, learning resources, collaboration, and information.
The questionnaire responses was then classified into 5 categories ("very high", "high", "moderate", "low", and "very low").Those were analzed through cross tabulation by comparing two variables.This method was used to process respondent's characteristic data containing age, gender, education level, and income.
To test the validity of the questionnaire, the taken samples should represent the overall respondents with the product moment correlation technique (Suharsimi Arikunto, 2010) : After the instrument was consderd valid, it was then followed by reliability testing, to test the extent to which a measurement result was relatively constant for different settings.It is the level of stability of the measurement results towards a certain symptom.To measure reliability, it was used the Cronbach alpha formula (Umar, 2003;48).The formula is as follows: The data analysis technique in this study was according to the steps as proposed by Burhan Bungin (2003), those were using interviews and documentation studies.Data reduction, interpreted as a selection process, focuses on simplifying and transforming rough data that arises from written records in the field.Reduction iwass carried out since the data collection began with summarizing, coding, searching for themes, creating clusters, writing memos and so on with the intention of separate irrelevant data or information.Display data is the description of a set of structured information that gives the possibility of conclusions drawing and action.The presentation of qualitative data was presented in the form of narrative texts.The presentation can also take the form of matrices, diagrams, tables and charts.Is the final activity of data analysis, drawing the conclusions in the form of interpretive activities, by finding the meaning of the data that had been presented.Between displaying data and drawing conclusions there is an existing data analysis activity.In this sense the analysis of qualitative data was ongoing, repeated and continuous effort.The problem of data reduction, data presentation and conclusions drawing, or verification is a series of related analysis activities.
Furthermore, the data that has been analyzed, explained and interpreted in the form of words was to describe the facts in the field, to answer the research questions which were taken only the core of it.
Questionnaire answers from the respondents categorized into 5 categories (very high, high, medium, low, and very low) and this classsification is based on the following formula:

Kriteria Kategorisasi
Sangat Tinggi (M+1.50SD) < x Tinggi (M +0.50SD) < x ≤ (M+1.50SD) Sedang (M -0.50 SD) < x ≤(M+ 0.50 SD) (Azwar, 2007: 28) In this study crosstab analysis was intended to describe the research subjects based on the produced data in the study and it was not to test the hypothesis.Here, Chi square was used as method used to observe whether there was a relationship between observed variables.The formula used in the Chi square method is:

The implementation of ECE program in Wonogiri district
Policies that supported Early Childhood Education are a strategic step to prepare human resources for a better future.As mentioned by Suyadi and Ulfah (2013: 17), ECE is held with the aim of facilitating the growth and development of children that emphasized in developing all aspects of a child's personality.Therefore, it provides an opportunity for children to develop various aspects of development such as, cognitive, language, social, emotional, physical, and motoric.Furthermore, they state that, ECE, institutionally can also be interpreted as one form of education which focuses on laying the foundation towards growth and development, both motor coordination, emotional intelligence, multiple intelligence and spiritual.In accordance with the uniqueness and growth of Early Childhood, the implementation of Education for ECE is adjusted to the stages of development of the children itself.
The qualified ECE program can produce competent human resources.The quality of human resources has a broad impact on all aspects of life, in terms of social, politic, economic, culture and national defense and security.In other words, the science and technology mastery can only be mastered by qualified human resources.One of target for ECE program in Wonogiri district is equal distribution access for Wonogiri people.To fulfill the development of science and technology, it is necessary to have certain qualified human resources, so that education in Indonesia needs to be increased to cover these qualifications.The distribution of education must be able to reach out to all communities of the country and not only the upper class economic but also the middle to lower society.
In case of the implementation of early childhood education program, Wonogiri Government collaborated with the private sector to realize the services.The private sector referred to the community and community organizations.The government not only provides the services to the public but also invites the public to jointly carry out these services.It was to enable the community to recognize their needs and made them become independent communities.In the implementation of the ECE Program, Wonogiri Government also developed cooperation in the form of partnerships with various institutions and organizations including the Early Childhood Education Forum, Women's Organizations, Universities, HIMECEI, IGTKI-PGRI, GOPT, IGA, and other bodies of early education.This is in accordance with the Regulation of the Minister of National Education number 13 of 2005, that nonfomal ECE is under the guidance of the ECE Directorate, Directorate General of Non Formal Education.In accordance with the main tasks and functions of ECE Directorate, It is obliged to prepare various guidelines that can be used as references by the people who will conduct nonformal ECE (Zainal 2011;1) In this collaboration the government involved the role of the community and the community organizations to empower their participation and to improve the public awareness towards the importance of early childhood education.

The form of parental towards ECE implementation
The questionnaire responses was then classified into 5 categories ("very high", "high", "moderate", "low", and "very low").The descriptive analysis is presented below.Based on table 2 above, it can be seen that most of the research respondents had a low level of participation in terms of policies, with 165 people or 58.51%, the level of participation in terms of policies can classified as moderate with 96 people or 34.04%.Meanwhile, the high level of participation on policy was 11 people or 3.90%.The rest showed a very low level of participation in terms with 10 people or 3.55%.Based on table 4 above, it can be seen that most of the research respondents had a low level of participation in terms of collaboration as many as 211 people or 74.82%, the moderate level of participation was 42 people or 14.89%.Meanwhile, the high level of participation was 8 people or 2.84%.The rest indicted very low level of participation for 21 people or 7.45%.The research findings in general indicate that parental participation in the implementation of ECE in Wonogiri is not significant.According to Gichohi (2015), participation should be carried out by parents in ECE implementation that consisting of two domains, namely the technical domain related to students, policy instruction, discipline policy and solving learning problems.The second is the managerial domain such as school operations, setting school goals, managing school staff, allocating budgets, and evaluating teachers.
It is also confirmed in the Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 20 of 2003 Article 8 concerning on the National Education System which mentions "the community has the right to participate in the planning, implementation, supervision and evaluation of educational programs".Parent participation is a form of community participation in PAUD implementation starting from planning to implementing the activity that has been arranged by the group.Parent participation can also facilitate access in sharing daily information at home about children in the classroom, so that the treatment given by the teacher and parents can work in harmony.Referring to table 5 above, it can be concluded that most of the research respondents had the relatively low level of participation in terms of information as many as 150 people or 53.19%, the moderate level of participation in terms of information with 92 people or 32.62%.on the other hand, the high level of participation was 19 people or 6.74%.The rest showed very low levels of participation with 21 people or 7.45%.From table 6 above, it can be seen that most of the research respondents showed the relatively low total participation rate with 212 people or 75.18%, the moderate catagory of total participation was 58 people or 20.57%.Meanwhile, the high catagory among total participation was 11 people or 3.90%.The rest indicated very low catagory of total participation.

Factors affecting the parental participation in the implementation of ECE program
The factors affecting the parental participation were age, educational background, income, religion, occupation and distance between the home and the school.The results of the descriptive analysis with Crosstab analysis and Chi-Square statistic on the affecting of the parental participation in the implementation of ECE program can be summarized in the following table.This finding in line with Raed Zedan (2012) study entitled "Parents involvement according to education level, social situation, and number of family members".This research is revealing the assumptions that (1) there is a correlation between the level of parental education and involvement with their children (2) there is a correlation between the parents' socio-economic situation and parent involvement.The method was quantitative methods, with a questionnaire.The results of the study show that (1) the higher level of education of parents, result in the higher level of monitoring, support and encouragement, involvement when problems arise, as well as general involvement among parents (2) Parents of higher education levels have higher demands and expectations for children's education.The demands and expectations contribute to the development of higher aspirations in education and learning achievement.
The differences in this research are the theme in which Raed Zedan's research examines the involvement of parents in children's basic education while the researchers examine parental participation in ECE Level.Meanwhile, the method of Raed Zedan's study used correlational tests while the researcher uses factor analysis tests and the object of Zedan's research was in Israeli territory while researchers in Wonogiri district.

CONCLUSION
Based on the research results, some conclusions can be gathered as follow.ECE program in Wonogiri district is under the management of the Education Office, especially Non-Formal and Informal Education unit in which it has a focus on developing ECE services in that area.One of the working programs is to create equal distribution of ECE access for Wonogiri people.
Meanwhile, the implementation of ECE program in Wonogiri used a form of Public Private Partnership in which the Wonogiri District Government collaborated with the private sector to realize the services.
The results of the study showed that the majority of the research respondents had a relatively low level of participation in terms of policies with 165 people or 58.51%.Most of the research respondents indicated in low level of participation for learning resources with 197 people or 69.86%.In case of collaboration domain, most of the respondents had a low of participation with 211 people or 74.82%.Meanwhile, in terms of information, mostly had the relatively low level of participation as many as 150 people or 53.19% and 212 people or 75.18% showed the relatively low total participation rate.
The low parental participation in the implementation of early childhood education in Wonogiri Regency is caused by various factors, especially the demographic factors of parents of students.The research findings showed that the factors that affect parental participation in ECE implementation are education, occupation, income and distance of the respondents' homes with the schools.
There are 510 kindergateen teachers and 927 teachers for ECE program.According to the Regulation from Minister of National Education in 2004, ECE institutions is for children with the age up to 2 years, namely Child Care Center and the ratio between teachers and children is 1: 4. It means that one teacher cares four students as the maximum number.Meanwhile, for ECE with the age of 2-4 years, the ratio of is 1: 8. ECE program with the age of 4-6 years, or Playgroups and Kindergarten, the maximum ratio is 1:15.It indicates that one kindergarten teacher should not teach more than 15 students.Reviewing those regulation, there is a lack of teacher in Wonogiri district so it requires supportable role of parents in early childhood education to collaborate with the organizer of ECE Program.

Table 2 .
Categorization results of the policy dimensions

Table 3 .
Categorization results of the learning resource dimensions

Table 3
above showed that most of respondents had a low level of participation in terms of learning resources, i.e. 197 people or 69.86%, the moderate level of participation in terms of learning resources with 33 people or 11.70%.Meanwhile,the high level of participation was only 7 people or 2.84%.The rest indicated high level of participation in terms of learning resources and the very low level was 45 people or 15.96%.

Table 4 .
Categorization results of the collaboration dimensions

Table 5 .
Categorization results of information dimensions

Table 6 .
Result of entire catagorization

Table 7 .
The factors affecting the parental participation