Level of community environmental support for student learning among secondary school children in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The community environment wherein the school is situated is influenced by its members, leaders, and the availability of resources (social, human, and financial). The community environment plays a significant role in supporting the success of educational programmes and supporting the attainment of school goals. Such support can be understood as maintaining school safety, carrying out community learning hours and supporting various school programmes directly in contact with the community. This research was aimed at determining community environmental support for student learning, mainly taking into account gender differences as a factor among secondary school children in Sri Lanka.  The study used a survey research design and a questionnaire instrument for data collection. A stratified random sampling technique was used to select 1350 secondary school students. To analyse the data, the research used descriptive analyses such as mean, standard deviation and MANOVA analysis. The results demonstrate that the community environmental support for student learning is was at a moderate level (overall mean of 3.522, overall S.D. of 0.931). MANOVA analysis shows significant differences in community environmental support based on gender as community support for female student learning is significantly higher than male students. The implications of the study indicate that community organisations can still increase their academic support in their city or village. Local community organisations can organise educational seminars and workshops, be involved in improving the school’s physical environment and infrastructure, sponsor events, provide financial assistance for specifically male students as well as female students.