ABSTRACT
This study aims to determine the impact of Long Distance Parenting of OFW parents its effect to the academic performance of the selected Bayabasan Elementary School pupils. From the said research, the following conclusions were derived: There is significant relationship of having OFW parents and its effect to the Academic performance of the selected pupils of Bayabasan Elementary School. Furthermore, there is significant relationship between parental involvement and academic performance of the pupil-respondents. It was found out from the study that there is significant difference in the academic performance of OFW children during the migration of OFW parent. Thus from the above-mentioned conclusions, it is recommended that pupil-respondents should be continuously encouraged, motivated and directed to have study time at home to improve their academic performance. Aside from that in families where parents plan to work abroad, it would be better if a father leaves instead of a mother as this has effect on the performance of OFW children in school. Other support system must continue to extend moral, spiritual and even personal assistance to OFW children for them not to experience the absence of an OFW parent. Schools must continue its program for OFW children, or may adopt programs that will help these OFW children overcome anxiety and other problems brought by the changes that happen in their own household caused by migration.
Keywords: Long distance parenting, Overseas Filipino Workers, Academic Performance
Content and Rationale
This study aims to determine the impact of Long Distance Parenting of OFW parents its effect to the academic performance of the selected Bayabasan Elementary School pupils.
Long-distance parenting transpires when the migrant mothers and their teenage children narrate activities, exchange experiences, extend care, share concerns, express emotions, and articulate affections through long-distance communication. Thus, these mothers’ long-distance parenting depends on being able to communicate activities, experiences, care, concerns, emotions, and affections with their teenage children. Moreover, long-distance parenting also depends on being able to talk to their teenage children during routine or typical conversations, during special occasions and events, and during situations that bring stress to the achievement of family goals such as during urgent, emergency, serious, delicate, and tenuous circumstances. In addition, these mothers’ long-distance parenting also depends on being able to communicate with their children’s caregivers so that they can easily consult parenting matters with them. Furthermore, long-distance parenting also depends on being able to choose and use communication media and technologies that would meet the families’ communication needs and overseas communication budget. Migrant mothers confirm that long-distance communication and use of communication media and technologies make parenting, even across borders, possible.
Generally, the home has been identified as an overwhelming factor affecting students’ performance academically. It would appear, then, that broken homes may present a very serious danger to the emotional, personality, and mental adjustment of the young adolescent. This impinges on students’ academic achievement. Other variable to consider in this study is the personality development of the child.
Review of Related Literature
Grusec (2006) believed that there is always a question on what happens with the children being left by their parents who work abroad. There are lots of possibilities that can happen. There are children who can finish college and find a job, other children don’t. Some children grow independently and have a different beliefs from their parents. They are also easily influenced by the people around them.
Miller (2008) in his article said that many of the OFW are parents who often have children left behind. Family separation is now recognized as one of the social costs of migration affecting the global south. Relationships within such transnational families depend on long-distance communication and there is an increasing optimism among Filipino government agencies and telecommunications companies about the consequences of mobile phones for transnational families. Positive in a way that parents are sure that their children are still alive and receive their monthly allowance but there is an uncertainty that their children are telling the truth.
Bryant (2016) stated that parent-child interactions, specifically stimulating and responsive parenting practices, are important influences on a child's academic development. By examining specific parenting practices that are amenable to change, such as parent involvement, and the mechanisms by which these practices influence academic performance, programs may be developed to increase a child's academic performance. While parent involvement has been found to be related to increased academic performance, the specific mechanisms through which parent involvement exerts its influence on a child's academic performance are not yet fully understood. Understanding these mechanisms would inform further research and policy initiatives and may lead to the development of more effective intervention programs designed to increase children's academic performance.
The children in left-behind households do not appear to suffer greater social or economic problems than their peers in non-remittance-receiving households, with the exception of younger children. However, care by the extended family, or community or institutional care, often does not provide as much protection from abuse and exploitation as parental care. When very young infants are left behind, recommended periods for exclusive breastfeeding may be compromised and malnutrition is exacerbated. Parental absence, however temporary, can still have a significant impact on children left behind. Among the consequences are a decrease in cognitive development and a compromising of long-term human capital accumulation and income-generating potential in the long run. The positive effect on children’s academic performance may reflect specific patterns of investments migrant parents channel into children’s education argues that in the Philippines remittances are used to send children to private schools, which were considered better than public schools. He suggests that children in left behind households have a higher probability of attending private schools, and that, on the average, they get better grades than non-migrant children. Finally the extra income a household gains from remittances may allow children to delay entering the workforce in order to further their studies, thereby increasing the final level of education. Yet by contrast, migration of parents can also detrimentally affect school attendance.
Agulana (2016) pointed out that the family lays the psychological, moral, and spiritual foundation in the overall development of the child. Structurally, family/homes is either broken or intact. A broken home in this context is one that is not structurally intact, as a result of divorce, separation, death of one of parent and illegitimacy.
Psychological home conditions arise mainly from illegitimacy of children, the label of adopted child, broken homes, divorce and parental deprivation. Such abnormal conditions of the home, are likely to have a detrimental effect on school performance of the child he asserts.
Levin (2014) stated that parents are probably the actor with the clearest un-dimensional interest in a high level of their children’s academic performance. To some extent, there is simple evidence to show the marital instability brings about stress, tension, lack of motivation and frustration obviously, these manifestations act negatively on a child’s academic performance.
Cabansag (2008) revealed that there was a highly significant relationship between behavior of the children and parental roles such as conducting review before exams, reading books together with the child, giving encouragement to study harder, and conferring with the teachers regarding child’s school standing. Furthermore, among the roles of the left parents, only encouraging the child to study harder was found to have a significant relationship. However, it was a negative relationship with children’s academic performance. Most of the OFW children performed either satisfactorily or needs improvement is mentioned in relation to their school activities.
Pascual (2012) investigated the effects of having an OFW Parent to the teenage children’s academic performance. Majority of OFW teenage children who participated in this study exhibited independence when it comes to secondary career decision. Some students gave priority to their interest whereas they prioritize their abilities and they start to make their own decision. These children who know how to make their own decision are the children who are independent while a child who does not know how to make their own decision are the children who have no plans for life and are often denoted as a dependent person.
When a student is being left, they have a freedom to do whatever they want to do. We can say that they have the decision if they would study or not. Whatever choice or decision they make will surely affect their grade. If they will choose to study, then, they will have a good grade, but if they will not study then they will not have a high grade. Therefore, having an OFW Parent can make a huge effect in their children’s life.
Dungo (2008) reported that more and more Filipino women are leaving their homes stretching their traditional domestic labor for paid labor in the capitalist market. In 2008, 2000 to 3000, OFWs who leave the country are 70 percent women from classes D and E, married, between the ages of 22-34, with child left falling within the age cluster of 3-6, or below 10 years old. Majority (86%) of the OFW women have come from the bottom income bracket. Among the older women, teens are left behind. Both clusters are sensitive ages for 18 these are children undergoing the sensitive years of moral formation with the teens specially searching for their models as they slowly shed-off their being a child to take on the new adult’s role. Overall, the ratio of male to female OFWs is almost 1:1. As a point of reference, in January 2004, only 38 percent of all employed individuals in the country were females. When only the OFWs who are either household head or the spouse of the household head are considered, then 2 out of 3 are males. In contrast, among those who are neither heads of households nor spouses, it was found that 2 out of 3 are females (Edillon, 2008). The increasing global feminization of labor migration may have a negative effect on the education of children left behind if asymmetric preferences between males and females were to persist. Even if women may send a substantial percentage of their income husbands left at home may prefer to direct only a small part of that income towards the education of children. Therefore, migrant women have to find a way to maintain their roles in deciding how to allocate interhousehold income.
Parreñas (2008), for example, found out that migrant Filipino mothers tend to remit to the eldest child instead of the father, and remain involved in the expenditure decision by co-managing a bank account not with their husbands, but often with their eldest daughters. Some studies describing the remittance behaviors of male and female migrants found out that women remit more (both overall and as a percentage of their income) than men do.
Conaco (2016) in her study revealed that the children of migrant mothers tended to lag somewhat behind compared to the other children. Variables describing engagement have therefore usually been treated in analyses as predictors of other schooling outcomes, particularly academic performance. Engagement is seen as a disposition towards learning, working with others and functioning in a social institution, which is expressed in students’ feelings that they belong in school, and in their participation in school activities. Membership in academic organizations and participation in extra-curricular activities is more prevalent among the children of OFWs. Based on her study, the top club memberships were in the Math Teachers Association of the Philippines (MTAP) training guild, where children are screened and trained rigorously in math; the Science Club; and such special interest clubs as choir, drum, Lyre Corps, Banduria and Rondalla Club. Other clubs mentioned were Boy Scout, Girl Scout, athletic clubs and Pupil Government Organization. Membership in these clubs, as well as participation in extra-curricular activities, usually requires some amount of money. This is possibly the reason why children of non- OFW parents refrain from joining them. Lesser proportion of OFW children are members of socio-civic organizations (14%). In contrast, 23 percent of the children of non-OFW are members. This disparity may be explained. During the focus group discussion conducted among parents left behind, i.e., spouses of OFWs, they admit to being overprotective of their children. They would not want to be blamed by the OFW for any untoward incident that may befall the children. Socio-civic organizations are expected to meet outside school and beyond school hours. In contrast, school activities are performed on school grounds and within school hours, with an obvious figure of authority. Hence, the latter is preferred over the former in the case of OFW children.
The review of the aforementioned research studies showed similarities to this study in as much as they dealt with Parenting of OFWs. Similarities on the importance of parent’s involvement in increasing academic performance of their pupils were the results of the study of Parreñas (2008), Cabansag (2008), Edillon (2008), Conaco (2016), Pascual (2012), Dungo (2008) Grusec (2006) Miller (2008) Bryant (2016) Agulana (2016) Levin (2014) showed similarities as having OFW parents would most likely affects pupil’s enrolment and academic performance.
Those studies differed from the present study in many aspects such as the content of the questionnaire, the age of the respondents, locale of the study, time frame and the statistical instruments used in the study.
Action Research Questions
1. What is the Academic Performance of pupils S. Y 2016-2017?
2. What is the impact of long distance parenting of OFW Parents to the academic performance of their children?
3. What plan of action can be designed to enhance the performance of pupils having OFW parents?
Action Research Method
Participants and/or other source of data and information
The study covers on the impact of long distance parenting of OFW parent to the academic performance selected pupils from Grades 6 with OFW parent of Bayabasan Elementary School. The respondents were chosen purposively.
Data gathering Method
The survey questionnaire was disseminated to the respondents to answer. The researcher asked permission to the Guidance Counselor of Bayabasan Elementary School to see the academic grades of the students who have an OFW parents. The data gathered will be tallied, tabulated, analyzed and interpreted to have the findings in which the conclusion and recommendations will be drawn.
Data Analysis Plan
To obtain the necessary data and information, a survey questionnaire was administered in this study.
The students of Bayabasan Elementary School who have OFW parent in Grades 6 of school year 2017-2018 were asked to answer the survey questionnaire. Then the researcher asked for a copy of their grades to answer the survey questionnaire, which includes the profile of the respondents.
Result and Discussion
Conclusions
1. Most of the respondents have low performance in their academic grades due to lack of guidance from their OFW parent.
2. There is significant relationship between parental involvement and academic performance of the pupils-respondent during the migration of the OFW parent.
3. There is significant relationship between responses of respondents regarding long distance parenting and profile variables.
4. An action plan designed by the researcher can enhance the Performance of the pupils with OFW parents.
Recommendations
Based on the conclusion of the study, the following suggestions may help improve the performance of the pupils who have OFW parents in Bayabasan Elementary School.
1. Proper guidance should be given to pupil with OFW parent by the caretakers, relatives and teachers to improve their academic performance.
2. Parents who work abroad should leave their children with their relatives who can give the best guidance, care and love.
3. In families where parents plan to work abroad, it would be better if a father leaves instead of the mother as this has great effect on the performance of OFW children in school. Other support system must continue to extend moral, spiritual and even personal assistance to OFW children for them not to experience the absence of an OFW parent.
4. Pupil-respondents should be continuously encouraged, motivated and directed to have study time at home to improve their academic performance in the absence of their OFW parent/s.
5. Implementation of the proposed action plan is highly recommended. Schools must continue its program for OFW children, or may adopt programs that will help these OFW children overcome anxiety and other problems brought by the changes that happened in their own household caused by migration.
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