Assessment of Availability And Implementation of Safety Precautions in Public and Private Day-care Centers in Gombe State, Nigeria
Assessment of Availability And Implementation of Safety Precautions in Public and Private Day-care Centers in Gombe State, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to assess the availability and implementation of safety precautions in day-care centers in Gombe State, Nigeria.
Six objectives, five research questions and three null hypotheses were formulated as guide to the study. Among the objectives was to identify safety measures at the day-care centers.
Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study was 880 day-care givers in 340 day-care centers registered under Gombe state Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB). The sample size used for the study was 240.
Checklist and semi structured questionnaire were used for data collection. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation and null hypotheses were tested using t-test and PPMC statistics at 0.05 level of significance.
The result revealed amongst others that good toilet system, spacious and ventilated classrooms accident free environment are among the available safety precautions and a significant difference exist between the safety measures in public and private day-care centers.
Significant relationship exists between availability of safety precaution and adequacy of safety precaution in day-care centers.
Based on the findings it was concluded that child safety precaution measures are adequately available in good condition and well implemented in public and private day-care centres.
The implication of this finding is that children would have good care and safety during the day time while their parents are in work place.
It was recommended amongst others that Gombe State Ministry of Education should make provision of adequate security and fencing of public day care centers.
The Ministry of Education should make it mandatory for all private day care proprietors to conform to Health Safety and Environmental Standard (HSE) as this will provide proper safety and mutual respect amongst pupils in public and private day care centers in Gombe State.
INTRODUCTION
All children have the right to be safe at home, at school and in their child care centers. Safe environments are essential for preventing injury, enabling children to grow, develop and feel safe in their learning environment.
In line with the global trend, as enshrined in Obasi and Asodike (2005), the white-collar jobs and the wage-earning systems that are the features of modern societies are known to keep parents away from home most part of the day.
The Nigerian women need to work to meet up with the present harsh economic realities, hence, they send their children to day-care centres where they can be taken care of while the mothers are at work.
This has brought about the increase in demand for supplementary care and schools with parents sometimes not minding the cost.
After this talk about what the day-care centre is, it was not fully revealed whether the various type of the centres in Gombe state are fulfilling their roles hence the need for assessment to ascertain if the goals are being met.
The United States Department of Health (2008) specifically defines a Child Day-Care Center as a program of supplementary care for more than twelve (12) years related or unrelated to children outside their own homes on a regular basis.
The implementation of the National Policy on Education (Federal Republic of Nigeria, [FRN] 2004), and its subsequent provision in the Universal Basic Education (1999) and implementation of the UBE Act (2004) on early childhood education in the country will not only increased the awareness but also made it available to every willing Nigerian to access Day-Care services.
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