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PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT TOWARDS ACHIEVING QUALITY AND EQUAL-ACCESS TO EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Quality in education has become an imperative given global efforts at equity and access has not yielded the expected economic growth and national development, especially in developing countries. This research aims at providing solutions to role of parental involvement in achieving quality and equal-access in Nigeria. It will serve as an eye opener to parents and caregivers in helping to adjust their mode of collaboration towards achieving better future for their children no matter their busy schedules. A survey approach was used through self- administered questionnaires, and analysis was done using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to test the hypotheses. Based on the findings, it was revealed that parental involvement in early childhood education and pre-primary education had impact on achieving quality and equal-access in Oyo State (F(4,196) = 30.323; p< 0.05). The socio-economic characteristics of parents had significant impact on achieving quality and equal-access in early childhood education and pre-primary education (F(4,196) = 0.132; p<.05). It could be concluded that parental involvement (emotional care and support) has a very big influence on early childhood education, particularly the academic performance of the child. The level of the parental educational attainment and exposure determines the age at which the child is being enrolled in school. This implies that, residential setting of the parents has nothing to do with the educational performance of the child. Based on the findings, it was recommended that parents should understand why their involvement in achieving quality and equal-access to education is so important to their children’s success.