This study aims to promote parental engagement in the foundational academic support system by transparently and accurately communicating information regarding student selection procedures and support programs to guardians. To this end, a survey was ad...
This study aims to promote parental engagement in the foundational academic support system by transparently and accurately communicating information regarding student selection procedures and support programs to guardians. To this end, a survey was administered to 1,107 guardians of elementary school students and 771 guardians of middle school students to assess their awareness of and needs related to the Basic Academic Ability Guarantee Program. In addition, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with four guardians to explore the psychological mechanisms underlying their participation in the policy. The principal findings derived from the integration of quantitative and qualitative analyses are as follows. First, while guardians generally held a positive perception of their children’s school adjustment, concerns regarding learning gaps intensified as students advanced in grade level. A pronounced tendency toward internal attribution was also observed, with guardians attributing learning difficulties to parental responsibility or students’ affective characteristics. Second, although reliance on private tutoring was notably high, guardians demonstrated considerable trust in schools’ diagnostic systems and teachers’ professional competence within the domain of foundational academic support, along with a strong willingness to participate in related programs. Third, actual policy awareness was markedly low, with more than half of respondents indicating they were unfamiliar with the relevant policies, thereby revealing a significant accessibility gap attributable to insufficient information dissemination in educational settings. Based on these findings, this study presents a set of policy-level and practical recommendations.