There is no denying that the number of childcare centres, commonly known as nurseries, is mushrooming rapidly. This is due to the high parental demand for the competency of personnel in Early childhood education and care (ECEC), especially for working parents. This study aims to determine the parents’ expectations of the competency personnel in providing ECEC for their children ages 0 to 3. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out at the childcare center in Chengdu, China which involved 450 respondents using a convenient sampling method. The inclusion criteria were fathers or mothers with children aged 0-3 years old and already enrolled in the childcare center in Chengdu. The results show parents gave high importance scores for all aspects of the competency domains and higher scores for health and safety related items than other aspects. For the competency domains such as respondents aged 30-40, with mean scores of 4.78 and SD=0.36; possess college and secondary education, with mean scores of 4.67 and SD=0.43; children aged 25 months until 36 months with mean scores of 4.60 and SD=0.50 giving the highest scores for competency domains. A one-way ANOVA test found that there were relationships between sociodemographic data and the expectations of the competency were statistically significant among parents of varying ages and educational backgrounds where p-value < 0.05. The parental group aged 30-40, possessing college and secondary education, exhibited the most significant demand for abilities across all dimensions, and there was no significance in occupation, family income, or primary care of the child. The findings can provide recommendations for the government to improve the construction of the childcare service system and provide a reference for the construction of courses for cultivating childcare professionals in colleges and universities.
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(Yang & Latif, 2024)
Yang, H., & Latif, R. A. (2024). Parents Expectation on the Competency of Personnel in Providing Early Childhood Education and Care: A Cross-Sectional Survey in Chengdu City, China. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 14(7), 1233–1249.
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