Council vice-president Amanda Bichard knows first-hand how hard it is to get volunteers to help. She's the canteen and uniform shop convenor at Macgregor Primary School as well as the school's representative on the council.

With a core group of five people looking after the day-to-day running of the P&C, and about 20 volunteers who help with in-class activities, the canteen and uniform shop, they are stretched serving a school of 400.

"Volunteer numbers are desperately low in some schools," Ms Bichard said.

"We are asking ACT election candidates to commit to boosting volunteer skills and numbers in schools and to providing administrative assistance to school parent organisations that need it."

ACT Labor pledged on Monday to continue its work on parental engagement by employing a dedicated parental engagement officer within the Education Directorate to work with schools and parent groups to promote parental engagement across the ACT.

It will also commit $1.6 million over four years to fund grants to schools and parent groups for activities and programs designed to enhance parental engagement at schools and support strong parent communities.

The Canberra Liberals have also committed to engaging with P&C associations.

Liberals education spokesman Steve Doszpot said his party would work to ensure associations were properly resourced.

"We're committed to engaging with the P&C Association, as I have been for the past eight years, and will continue to work to maximise the role of volunteers in Canberra's schools," Mr Doszpot said.

"We understand the problems surrounding staffing of canteens and I've had extensive discussions with [council member] Vivienne Pearce with how to help with parental engagement."

The ACT Council said decades of research evidence showed that when parents were engaged, their children did better at school, academically, behaviourally and socially.

"So a strong P&C is important for achieving good education outcomes," Ms Bichard said.

She said there needed to be more support for programs that gave people the skills to effectively run the "small businesses" inside schools.

"In the case of canteens, P&Cs have to arrange payroll, workers' compensation insurance, keep track of changes to employee awards, comply with food safety requirements and qualifications, be registered as a food business, have a workplace health and safety policy, risk assessments and so on," she said.

"This is an immense undertaking for volunteers."

While she recognised there was a wider societal problem in dwindling volunteer numbers due to both parents working and families leading busier lives, she said if people felt as though they could gain something from the experience they might be more willing to donate their time.

"Maybe it's a sad thing but people want something out of the experience now, whether it be a certificate or professional recognition, you can't even claim volunteering at a school in the 15 hours a week you need to do to be eligible for some Centrelink payments," she said.

"Nine times out of 10, when you're volunteering that something is the smile on a kid's face or a thank you, there is nothing else."