Introduction
Educational attainment is significant for the individual, social, and economic development of a country. Education empowers minds which will be in a position to conceive constructive and positive ideas and thoughts. Education is also significant in living with happiness and prosperity. As, such, it is essential for all relevant stakeholders to work towards ensuring that quality education is attainable to all students regardless of their social and economic context, race/ethnicity, and, family context. Teachers have an integral role to play in fostering cultural responsive teaching, which will encourage interaction between students from different cultures. Finally, educational leaders should work to promote educational attainment for students from different walks of life
Role of Cultural Responsive Teaching in Education Attainment of Students
Culturally responsive teaching is an integral aspect in the delivery of quality education. Culturally responsive teaching is an educational activity which acknowledges the importance of incorporate the student’s cultural backgrounds in the different aspects of education. Culturally responsive teaching has a number of key roles, one distinct role is it is used to improve the motivation and engagement of the students by educational needs (Saifer et al., 2011). Another key role is culturally responsive teaching plays an integral role in communicating and acquiring information. In addition to this, culturally responsive teaching is central in modelling the thinking process of students. Therefore, culturally responsive teaching is seen as a pedagogy which recognizes, reacts to, and revels important culture, provides full, fair access to learning for students from different cultures (Saifer et al., 2011). This illustrates that significance of culturally responsive teaching among learners’ learning process.
Three Factors which Impact Educational Attainment
There are three key factors which can impact educational attainment, and they include social and economic context, racial context/ethnicity, and, family context. Social and economic context impacts the overall human functioning, encompassing physical and mental health. Low socio-economic status communities and household develop academic skills slower when likened to students from higher socio-economic status groups (Egan, 2010). Another factor is racial context or ethnicity, which can also affect educational attainment. Ethnic minorities often have contrasting backgrounds and cultures. Key issues such as language barriers may impact the education attainment of a child from an ethnic background since the communication between the teacher and student may be hindered (Knapp, 1995). The final factor is the family context. Children from intact biological family generally have higher educational attainment when likened to children from separate families. These three factors tend to impact the educational attainment among students.
Long Term effect of Educational Attainment on Students
Educational attainment has been vital in developing leadership skills among students and also helps to develop cultural knowledge and understanding, which is key to fostering cohesion, acceptance, and tolerance among future generations (Antonio, 2001). Aside from this, educational attainment will equip students with the necessary tools they require to pursue different career paths. Increased educational attainment is correlated to the higher economic development and growth, which result from increased job creation opportunity and high employment rate in the nation. This means that educational attainment has been a useful tool that may be used to fight against poverty because of the increased employment rate and economic development. Aside from this, educational attainment sharpens the student’s critical thinking and problem-solving ability, and they can solve everyday problems more comprehensively. Finally, educational attainment helps improve the intellectual health of students.
Role of Educational Leaders in Promoting Educational Attainment for All Students
Educational leaders have a unique role in ensuring quality educational attainment for all students regardless of socio-economic status, culture, or race. They can attain this by being resource providers. Educational leaders can assist their associates through distributing instructional resources, which may incorporate instructional resources or websites to use with the students (Harrison & Killion, 2007). Aside from this, educational teachers are expected to be instructional specialists who are able to help their colleagues execute effective teaching strategies. The help may come as a form of planning lessons of differentiating instructions in collaboration with other teachers. Another key role of educational leaders is they are curriculum specialist. This role is central to educational attainment because understanding the content standards, the different aspects of the curriculum and how they connect, and how to use the curriculum to plan and evaluate educational pedagogy is key in guaranteeing that consistent curriculum application in a learning institution (Harrison & Killion, 2007).
Conclusion
Educational
attainment is central to the societal and economic development of any nation.
Because of this, nations are looking to foster educational attainment in order
to secure the future of their nation. To achieve educational attainment, then
it is important to encourage culturally responsive teaching, which will improve
the motivation and engagement of the students. Apart from this, it is crucial
to reduce the negative impact of social and economic context, racial
context/ethnicity, and, family context on educational attainment to improve the
quality of education. Finally, it is important to establish educational leaders
who are well suited to the position and who will help their colleagues offer
quality education to all students.