Parental Engagement Using ‘4M’ Concept in the Education Development Process in Malaysia

The parental engagement across waves in the Malaysian Education Development Plan 2013-2025 is more focused in the context of 'academic achievement'. Therefore, parental engagement needs to be expanded and given a new concept. This action is important to enable them to interact more effectively and engage continuously in line with the current needs. This concept paper aims to propose a concept to empower of parental engagement in the educational development process in Malaysia. Epstein's model as a basis of reference via the practice of the four management processes (4M) namely; planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to empower parents' engagement more effectively. The methods used are through the analysis of the Malaysian Education Development Plan 2013-2025; in addition the literature review that related to parental engagement, Epstein’s Model and the Management Model. The result, a conceptual framework was developed as a proposed for parental engagement to practice the concept of 4M. The implications of the study contribute to the parents to engage continuously and support in order for the Ministry of Education Malaysia to implement the national education development process more effectively.


Introduction
Parents play on important role in forming a brilliant generation.Accordingly, parental engagement should be given priority in the education development process in a country.In Malaysia, parental engagement is highlights through Shift 9 in Malaysian Education Development Plan 2013-2025; to create a learning ecosystem in the community (Ministry of Education, 2013).The implementation strategy of this policy is more focused as school partners that can improve the learning process, effectiveness, academic performance of students and the school as a whole (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2017).However, the effectiveness of parents in managing their engagement of this context has received less attention especially in contributing social support to this education development plan.
Hence, parental engagement needs to be expanded and given a new concept in order to play a role comprehensively.Moreover, it is necessary for parents to be involved continuously in the educational development process more effectively.Further, strengthen the parental engagement not only as strategic partners related to academic achievement, but Published Online: 10 November 2023 also able to interact on educational issues that may affect the national education development process (such as the issue of dropping out of education, social problems).This concept supports parental engagement that also seen as a predictor of academic achievement and behavioral problems (Parmar & Nathans, 2022).
Thus, this paper highlights the empowerment of parental engagement using the concept based on six types by Epstein's Model (1995, 2001) and also a management model by (Stoner et al., 1995).Epstein's model can be applied to expand the parental engagement in the national education development process starting at home, school and in the community environment.For management practices, it is suggested to apply the concept of 'how' individuals are able to achieve the goals, for example in the process 'how' to manage a personal budget (Lloyd & Aho, 2020).The use of this concept enables parents to carry out an activity more systematically because these processes are interconnected and occur simultaneously (Stoner et al., 1995).Therefore, this concept paper is to pay attention to the parental engagement through the 4M (managing process; planning, organizing, leading, and controlling).

Literature Review
Parental engagement describes as the dedication and active participation of family members; parents or other family members participate in the student's life and the (Piang & Leksansern, 2021).Parental engagement's policy through Shift 9; Malaysian Education Development Plan 2013-2025 are more focuses to create a learning ecosystem in the community; that can improve the learning process, effectiveness, academic performance of students and the school as a whole (Ministry of Education, 2013; Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2017).The parents' role as school partners are needed to be empower; so that, more research and practices should be implemented to get support and better understand 'how' parents be able manage their engagement more effectively in education development process.
Therefore, this concept paper focuses on six types of parental engagement based on the Epstein's Model (1995, 2001); parenting, communication, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, collaboration with the community.This concept is given priority to empower parents to engage effectively whether at home, school or in the community.Further, the Management Model by Stoner et al (1995) is also given attention.This model is also proven to be applicable in the context of education; to manage co-curricular activities in schools (Alias et al., 2019;Mohamed et al., 2020).The concept expressed through this model is an interconnected management processes (planning, organizing, leading and controlling) in achieving targets or objectives.As a result, the practice of six types in parental engagement using the 4M concept is able to support the national education development process in a more systematic way to achieve the set targets.

Methodology
The method of this concept paper is using a literature review approach to produce the conceptual framework that empowering the parental engagement in educational development process.Therefore, the analysis focuses on the parental engagement in the Malaysian Education Development Plan 2013-2025, Epstein's Model (1995, 2001) and Management Model by (Stoner et al., 1995).

Results
The proposed of conceptual framework as shown in Figure 1 and the management process (Table 1) that is expected to occur as a result of the use of the (Epstein's Model, 1995, 2001;Stoner et al., 1995).Parents manage to obtain resources and services from the community in addition to fostering shared responsibility to strengthen the educational development process.

Conclusions
Finally, the conceptual framework that is proposed in this paper, provides an opportunities for further studies to do research in more depth about; continuation of parental engagement in next the national education development plan, further to improve the way of parental engagement in managing student educational development at home, school and at the community level.In addition, this conceptual framework as well as contribute to the field of educational management knowledge; filling the gap of research that pays a little attention to using management models for parents to engage in the national educational development process.
This concept paper also offers a few implications that using 4M in the parental engagement; parents are able to play their role more effective in the environment at home, school, and community.Furthermore, students' life is managed better with the support by their parents and as well as able to improve academic achievement and character formation to a better level.Next, policy makers also can get parents' support, in addition able to implement educational development plans more effectively.Teachers and schools as well as get the support from parents, directly can improve the performance of students, teachers and schools, and finally able to achieve the target objective.Community also can form social support collectively and be more stable in dealing with issues that can affect the educational development process.
In conclusion, the parental engagement that using the concept of 4M, which is expected to be able to form a strong social support for the national education development process in Malaysia.Further, the Ministry of Education Malaysia can achieve the targeted objectives successfully.