Introduction
The present societies acknowledge the essence of education in realizing societal development. Nevertheless, societies are still struggling to ensure that education benefits all members of the community. In that respect, much focus is laid on education delivery system. Societies in Middle Eastern countries are an example of the societies which aim at ensuring that everyone in the society enjoys the fruits of education. This is because the girl child in such countries has for long been deprived the opportunity to access education. In addition, some individuals in the United States have been deprived the chance to access education because of their skin complexion. Nevertheless, when these categories of people were given an opportunity to obtain an education, the quality of education delivered to them became questionable. Another problem that is affecting the education sector besides the delivery system is the utilization of educational resources. The way in which these resources are explored to address student deficiencies is wanting.
The afterschool programs are one of the resources that that serves the majority of students throughout the nation. These programs seek to ensure that communities are provided with a mechanism that will help in supervising students who in one way or another would be at alone home or indulging in unproductive activities. Notably, the existing afterschool programs have been structured such that they do not focus on addressing the academic deficiencies that students face in their studies. Currently, this notion ideology is highly contested. For instance, individuals who support the afterschool programs assert that these programs offer homework assistance to learners. Nevertheless, providing homework assistance is a small area that can ensure that students’ performance is improved. The provision of afterschool program is an expensive process. This may be the sole reason why most of the initiated programs fail to provide high-quality education. In most instances, this cost is passed down to parents who cannot afford the extra expense of sending their children to attend such programs.
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Most important principles to Improve the Program
Notably, afterschool programs can be transformed if learning institution embraces research, practice, and funding. According to Lauer et al. (2006) and Durlak et al. (2010), when these principles are adopted, afterschool programs will end up with positive results on the learners. These principles will be discussed as follows:
Research
Research, in this case, ought to seek on establishing means and ways in which the quality of the program would be measured. Understanding the performance of the program would be essential in ensuring that the program is revised whenever the results are not pleasing. Therefore, research would help to turn the program to be more explicit and precise. In that aspect, researchers would have the mandate of ensuring that scalable measures have been put in place. That would help in measuring the behavior of the learners and other dispositions that would be integral in ensuring success in schools. Additionally, studies also show that there is the need for schools to conduct more studies that intend to enhance the quality of the program (Yoon et al., 2007). That should also include but not limited to staff development programs.
Notably, studies have indicated that when there is an improvement in staff practices, a positive outcome will be generated from the afterschool programs (Smith et al., 2012). Furthermore, that would lead to an understanding of how the quality of other small programs that serve the same purpose can be evaluated. The evaluation process is vital in ensuring that institutions can secure financial assistance from relevant bodies. It is apparent that such programs can do much better. Nevertheless, there is the need to ensure that such programs perform superbly to make sure that the there is a proper understanding of what it means for defining, endorsing, and sustaining high-quality education.
Practice
The teaching fraternity needs to devise a more valid and viable methodology to ensure that the practice is improving continuously. One of the ways in which the teaching practitioners can achieve this is by establishing a link with researchers. This method is promising since it provides a chance for the novel ideas generated by the researchers to be put in place and tested for their potential to improve the existing approaches. Typically, such association paves the way for the incorporation of research findings and knowledge with the existing circumstances and skills, and the present evidence based practice. This can be applied to various levels of human resource management to ensure that there is a collaboration that is sustainable (Mashburn et al., 2008). The partnership should foster and test vast programs such as the novel strategy for assessing the performance of the existing approach.
Essentially, a hastened but disciplined research and growth process is needed. This ought to see research findings advancing gradually to form reliable information that would be integral in improving the quality of the afterschool programs (Allen et al., 2011). Therefore, there is the need to develop and institutionalize novel mechanisms of guaranteeing a collaborative work between researchers and practitioners. Putting theories into practice is the promising ways in which the various approach can be improved and yield positive outcome from the learners (Bryk, Gomez, & Grunow, 2010) . At State level, afterschool networks ought to work in close cooperation with learning agencies as well as research partners in order to test and improve the existing strategies that appear to be promising. Locally, the municipal afterschool programs can collaborate with the national intermediaries to ensure that promising practices are communicated to learning institutions in local areas.
Funding
Notably, afterschool programs are incapable of improving the quality of their program on their own. Thus, the public system ought to provide room for professional growth and a way of monitoring resources in an attempt to improve the approaches. Importantly, the program needs to be provided with the necessary infrastructures that support the improvement of education in addition to sustaining its operation (Vandell et al., 2005).
Analysis and Application of Principles
As aforementioned, afterschool programs have the potential to impact positively on the academic life of students. These programs have proved to be superior compared to the ones that were used two decades ago. The works of Lauer et al. (2006) and Durlak et al. (2010) were very explicit in their study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the various evaluation programs. For instance, the study by Durlak et al. (2010) exhibited that these programs have an affirmative impact on the academic outcome of the learners. The authors reviewed sixty-eight evaluations of the afterschool-oriented programs that impacted positively on the academic life of the students. The results of the study explicitly showed that certain programs were essential in ensuring positive results. Notably, the programs studied were measured on their ability to improve interpersonal skills.
The study by Lauer et al. (2006), reviewed thirty-five evaluations that were particular for afterschool programs for children coming from low-incoming families. Like the previous study, these researchers were also able to show that such programs impact positively on their academic life. However, these researchers were not in a position to establish a particular program that caused the positive effect. Notably, the positive effect was possibly as a result of the smaller units in the programs that were used. Granger (2011) noted that within the many programs that have been evaluated, their impact is still limited. Thus, it is unclear why such trend has to persist. As such, there is the need for research to be perused in this direction to improve the quality of the programs.
Research is valuable tools that can enhance or rather transform the afterschool programs. From various research works, it is apparent that the interactions between the learners and their tutors during the programs help in improving the outcome of the process. Yoon et al., (2007) noted that most practitioners perceive that this type of interaction is essential in distinguishing between successful and unsuccessful programs. More research is therefore required to establish whether this notion is true. Mashburn et al. (2008) also add that the issue of staff improvement needs to be assessed by understanding their qualifications and the teacher-student ratios. These two aspects are important in determining the success of a program. Furthermore, research would also help in establishing the relevance of a particular program that might affect the teacher-student interactions (Durlak et al., 2010).
Transforming the afterschool program needs schools to determine how the quality of the program can be measured. Staff development approach nowadays requires various processes of measurement. This refers to processes that define the maturity of the program as well as the practitioners and systems that are superior in administering the afterschool program (Vandell et al., 2005). Notably, this is common in those institutions that are keen on using research-oriented tools to revise their programs. This system has been used at both state and local levels to guarantee continuous improvement of quality. In most cases, the system embraces sound planning, observational assessment, and training that is target specific.
Furthermore, there is unlimited evidence that strategies of such sort have the potential of improving the quality of afterschool programs. A study by Allen et al., (2011) showed that in the K-12 afterschool program, the coaching oriented student development was able to determine the level of the interaction between the teacher and students. During an intensive assessment of the Youth Program Quality Assessment (YPQA) aimed at improving the performance of the practice, two results were obtained. First, the program improved the delivery of instructions and second, the level of staff retention was remarkable (Smith et al., 2012). This was an implication that staff needs to be responsible for ensuring that improvement and implementation of practices that will improve the program is continuous. Therefore, they were not solely involved in ensuring that certain academic thresholds were achieved.
Conclusion and Recommendations
In this article, the author recommends that there is the need to research-based practices to be put in place. This will ensure that the best practices that have been identified by various researchers can be applied and measured to ascertain their suitability for the purpose. Importantly, there is the need for both the state and local governments to work together to ensure that the identified practices are communicated to all local schools. Importantly, the government needs to fund such program so that disadvantaged learners can have access to education since it is instrumental in their lives.
The afterschool programs are important in improving the academic performance of the students and schools in general. This program has shown its might over the ones that were used in the last two decades. However, the program has been sluggish and needs to be rejuvenated. In that respect, this article proposes that there is the need for learning institutions to work in close alliance with researchers who study the impact of the various programs on the quality of afterschool education. The results from such research ought to be put in place by the practitioners who have been accorded the mandate to impart knowledge during such times. Additionally, it is apparent that most of this program cannot sustain them. Therefore, both the state and local governments need to pledge their support for such initiatives. In so doing, students from low-income family backgrounds can attend to such programs, and in the end, they will have an opportunity to succeed in their life.
References
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