ASSESSMENT OF STATE GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT IN ENHANCING QUALITY EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION IN OSUN STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study assessed the quality of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme provided for children in Osun state. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The sample size comprised 300 public Basic schools in the state. A checklist was used to collect data for the study. The data obtained were analyzed using frequency count, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The results revealed that there was no provision of Pre-nursery, Nursery 1 and Nursery 2 classes in all the public basic schools in Osun state, very low percentage (10%) of the school had Pre-basic classes, there was availability of age appropriate curriculum for children of age 6-7 in Pre-basic class and basic 1-3, most of the schools had 60% of the instructional materials but not being used regularly. It can be concluded that the government is yet to provide full ECCE programme for young children in public basic schools in Osun State. It is recommended that the government should give ECCDE programme more priority in all the government owned basic schools in the State.