Indian parents most keen to help kids with schoolwork: Study

London: Indian parents are among the world's most keen to spend time with their children on schoolwork and are also the most optimistic about education standards in the country, a new worldwide education study has revealed.

 The 'Global Parents Survey', commissioned by UK-based Varkey Foundation compared attitudes and priorities of over 27,000 parents across 29 countries.
 
Indian parents emerged as the most likely to help their children with their education at 95 per cent and they also reported to spend longer helping their children with schoolwork, with 62 per cent spending seven or more hours a week. 

This contrasts with parents in the UK, who are much less likely to spend more than an hour per day helping with their children's schoolwork.  Among other key findings, nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of Indian parents said that education standards have improved in the last 10 years, higher than any other country surveyed and 87 per cent of Indian parents rated the quality of teaching at their child's school as good, compared with a global average of 78 per cent.

 "Despite headlines of funding shortfalls and educational failure around the world, it's remarkable to see how much faith parents have in the quality of teaching at their child's school," said Vikas Pota, Chief Executive of the Varkey Foundation.

 "Our research also shows that parents, especially in emerging economies, are taking their role in education seriously by devoting many hours a week to help their child out of school.  However, governments need to support parents by ensuring that under pressure school budgets are protected, and by reversing the cuts in education aid in the poorest parts of the world," he said. 

The findings, based on an online poll by IPSOS, are published ahead of the Varkey Foundation's annual Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF), to be held in Dubai later this month. 

The same questions were asked by parents in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, the UK, the US and Vietnam.  

Indian parents emerged as the most optimistic of all the countries surveyed about their child's school preparing them for the future, with 88 per cent saying their child's school is preparing them well for the world of 2030 and beyond.  A very high 85 per cent of parents in India whose child attends a state school would be "fairly likely" or "very likely" to send their child to a fee paying school if they could afford it, the highest of any country surveyed. 

At a global level, the survey found that parents' confidence in the quality of teaching at their children's schools is high, with 78 per cent rating it as good or very good and children's happiness is paramount to parents, with 43 per cent selecting this as among the three factors that cause them the most anxiety about their child at school.

By Aditi Khanna