Factors influencing parents’ decisions on the choice of early childhood facilities for their children A survey of parents within the Suame Municipality of Ghana

Abstract

Parents all over the world make a lot choices on behalf of their children, including the first school they attend. The purpose of the study, therefore, was to examine and rank the factors that influence parental decisions on the choice of early childhood facilities for their children. It also sought to establish relationships between parents educational, economic and gender status and their early childhood facilities choice within the Suame Municipality in Ghana. The study was grounded through the lenses of the Migration, Rational Choice Theories by building on the Push-Pull Model for Parent Choice. Using a descriptive survey design within the quantitative approach in the positivism paradigm, the study addressed three main research questions. A multi stage simple random sampling technique was employed to survey 80 respondents. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was employed to determine validity and reliability, whilst using the relative importance index to rank the overall factors influencing parents school choice. Pearson Correlation Test was also performed to explore the relationship between parents’ educational, economic and gender status regarding their choice of early childhood facilities for the children. The result suggested that parents place high premium on financial factors, which recorded RII of 0.800 than the personal reasons with RII value of 0.72 when deciding on early childhood facilities for their children to attend. The results also indicate that security and safety were ranked as top-most priorities among the personal factors, whilst the environment of school and children bringing food from home were also ranked as the second and third high important personal factors parents consider. Similarly, flexibility of fee payment structure was ranked as the top-most financial factor that influences parents’ early childhood facilities choice for their children. This was followed by convenient mode of payment, affordability of fees, and value for money. The results further revealed that parents’ gender, educational, and economic status had the strongest significant positive effect on their early childhood facilities choice, recording (β=0.510, p-value =0.000; β=0.089, p-value =0.010 and β =0.035, p-value =0.036) respectively. The study, therefore, concludes that the parents have the sense of appreciating the value for money consideration in line with the school choice for their wards. The study recommends that early childhood entrepreneurs ought to provide value for money service to the parents, with specific concentration on safety and secured environmental conditions, whilst offering flexible school payment options for the parents. Again, Ghana Education Service ought to sensitize parents and school owners on quality issues in early childhood education to inform policy, practice, and theory.