CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Day care education is the educational group experience for children prior to entrance into the primary grade of elementary school. It usually refused to the education of boys and girls from ages three to six or seven depending on the admission requirement of school in the area. Many educators have found that children who have been enrolled in daycare centers develop positive self concepts and basic understanding and skills that make them better able to apply their efforts to intellectual task when they enter primary school.
Daycare education may be provided in daycare centers, nursery schools, or kindergartens in elementary schools. The day nursery movement begin in Europe in the earl 19th century as a response to the increasing employment of women industry. The absence of large number of mothers from their homes during the day led to child neglect, which in turn , stimulated a variety of charitable agencies to seek ways of caring for the children of working parents. The early leader of this movement was French philanthropies jean Baptist firm in Marbeau, who in 1846 founded the crèche (French “cradle”) society of France, with the aim of fostering child care. Within a relatively short period, day Nurseries were establish in many parts of France and in several other European countries. Many were wholly or partly supported by local and national governments. A large number of nurseries were set up in factories, enabling mothers to take brief periods from their work to tend to their young children. In the U.S. the first day school was opened in 1854 by the nursery and child’s Hospital of New York City. Most of the nurseries established in the latter half of the 19th century were supported by charitable organizations.
Both in Europe and in the United States, the day-nursery movement received great impetus during world war I, when unprecedented numbers of women replaced men in industry. In Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, nurseries were establish even in munitions plants, under direct government sponsorship. The number of nurseries in the U.S gradually began to exercise some control over day care education through licensing, inspection, and regulation of conditions within the facilities. As studies of children revealed the importance of the early years in physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development, the nursery school movement spread rapidly in Britain and other European countries. The first nursery school in the U.S. were started under the auspices of colleges, universities and several as laboratories for child study, teacher education, and parent education. For many years, day nurseries were mainly charitable institutions operated for custodial care, where as nursery schools were generally commercial ventures offering educational programmes. Now, in most instances, both day-care centers and nursery schools employ trained personnel and offer various educational activities, day-care centers, however, are open for longer hours to accommodate working parents. With the outbreak of world war II, the number of day nurseries increased rapidly as women were again called on to work in industry.
This time the U.S. government immediately came to the support of facilities for young children, allocating and 6million in July 1942 for a program for the children of working mothers. Many states and local communities supplemented this federal aid. By 1945, more than 100,000 children were being cared for in centers receiving federal subsidies. Aer the war, the government abandoned the subsidies, causing a sharp drop in the number of centers. The expectation that most employed mothers would leave their jobs at the end of the war was only partially fulfilled, and during the post war years a widespread movement developed, headed by sociologists, social workers, teachers and other groups, which sought renewed government aid to meet the need for a comprehensive day care program.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The problems which this project is interested in finding solutions to are centered on significance of child day care centres in the Odeda Local Government Area of Ogun State.
