Availability of Caregivers in Early Childhood Care and Education Centres in Anambra State, Nigeria

This study sought to evaluate the availability of caregivers in the early childhood care and education centres in Anambra State, Nigeria. This desire was motivated by the need to determine the extent of availability of caregivers that existed between the public and private as well as urban and rural ECCE centres in respect of the implementation of the minimum standards for ECCE. Evaluative research design was adopted in the study. A total of 60 ECCE centres/pre-primary schools in Anambra State, consisting of 20 private and 40 public as well as 19 rural and 41 urban ECCE centres drawn from 64 private and 942 public ECCE centres in the State were involved in the study. The proprietors and caregivers in the selected schools served as respondents. The instrument for data collection was a Kit on the Evaluation of the Availability of Caregivers in the ECCE Centres in Anambra State, with direct observation and unstructured interview. The instrument was validated by experts and experienced personnel and used to collect data. The internal consistency of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha. The reliability estimate for 0.78. Percentages, frequency count and mean statistics were used to answer the research questions, while chi-square and student t-statistics were used to test the null hypotheses. The major findings of the study were that: private ECCE centres have more number and adequate caregivers. Based on the findings it was recommended that the Federal and State Governments should not stop at approving the ECCE centres, but should as well allocate adequate fund to the education sector to take care of the Early Childhood Care and Education.