AN ASSESSMENT OF INTEGRATED EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT POLICY AWARENESS AND UTILIZATION IN OYO STATE PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Abstract

This study determined the level of IECD policy awareness and utilization in Oyo State primary schools and ascertained the extent of the Utilisation of the IECD policy provision in the study area. These were done with a view to providing information on the level implementation of Integrated Early Childhood Education Development (IECD) Policy in Oyo State, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. This study therefore focused on assessment of implementation of the integrated early childhood development IECD policy in Oyo State. The population consisted all primary school teachers in Oyo State. The sample size consisted of 300 respondents. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select the sample for the study. From the five administrative zones in Oyo State, three were selected using simple random sampling technique. Ten primary schools were randomly selected from each of the administrative zones, making a total of 30 schools. Ten teachers were selected from each of the schools using purposive sampling technique. Three hundred teachers from the selected schools were purposively selected. Two research instruments titled, Awareness of IECD policy Questionnaire (AUQ) and Teachers' utilisation of IECD Policy Questionnaire (TUQ) were used to collect data for the study. Data collected were analysed using frequent counts and simple percentage. Results showed that the level of awareness and utilisation was moderate with 42.72%. Result also showed the extent of the utilisation of the IECD policy provision in the study area indicated that the teaching of the rudiments of numbers, letters, colours, shapes, forms, among others were done through play many times as possible with a mean score of =2.90. The study concluded that the level of IECD policy awareness and its utilisation was moderate in Oyo State primary schools. Based on the findings from this study, it was recommended that Government and stakeholders should ensure effective utilisation of the policy by providing all that is needed for the policy to work and Federal Government at the central and its components should show more interest in ECCE by providing needed quality human and materials resources to ensure the effective utilisation of the IECD policy.