Abstract :
Parental qualification provides evidence of differential access to resources, expectations, and learning opportunities at home. It is a predictor of children’s performance and achievement in school depending on the support parents provide in learning and their clear expectations from their children. Children’s performance not only becomes better, but their scores also increase depending on the conducive learning environment created by qualified parents at home. The more qualified the parents are the higher the children score in school. While extensive literature from western context confirms the positive correlation between active parental involvement and early academic skill acquisition, evidence from local context like Pakistan is rare. This paper quantitatively examines the association between parental qualification and students’ achievement in literacy and numeracy among Grades 4 and 5 in a private, primary school of district central, Karachi. It examines the how and why behind this relationship, understanding the extent to which levels of parental qualifications influence academic achievement in literacy and numeracy. This paper provides details about the instruments used for data collection and the ways through which the gathered information is rigorously analysed. Data was gathered from 240 students, 120 from each grade. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and chi-square goodness-of-fit tests were used to analyse the data. Findings show a strong, positive association between parental qualification and students’ achievements in literacy and numeracy. In both Grades and domains, chi-square tests confirmed uneven distribution of qualifications and achievements, while one-way ANOVA revealed significant differences in achievement across six parental qualification levels (p < .001) and the mean achievement scores showed gradual increment alongside each higher parental qualification.