By Panyi, Amy Blessis
The major purpose of the study was to identify child-care skills needed by care-givers in pre-primary schools in Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. Specifically, the study identified feeding, clothing, toilet training, interacting, safety and hygiene skill needs by care-givers in pre-primary schools in FCT. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population for the study was made up of 581 respondents in the six local area councils in the area of study. These include 236 pre-primary school care-givers, 265 secondary schools Home Economics teachers, 16 early child care experts and 64 nurses from public medical centres in the study area. Due to the manageable size of the population, the entire 581 respondents were used for the study, therefore, there was no sampling. Two sets of instruments were used for data collection. These include structured questionnaire titled: “Child Care Skill Needs by Care-givers Questionnaire” (CCSNCQ) and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) Guide. The instruments were validated by experts from Home Economics section of the Department of Vocational Teacher Education and Early Childhood Education from the Department of Educational Foundation, all in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Cronbach Alpha reliability technique was used to test the internal consistency of the Child Care Skill Needs by Care-givers Questionnaire (CCSNCQ). Reliability coefficients of 0.74 was obtained for feeding skills, 0.69 for clothing skills, 0.82 for toilet training skills, 0.85 for safety skills, 0.78 for interacting skills and 0.83 for hygiene while an overall reliability coefficient of 0.79 was obtained for the entire instrument. The quantitative data were analysed using mean and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) while the qualitative data were summarised. The study found that care-givers in pre-primary schools in FCT, Abuja needed 17 feeding skills which include: ability to have basic idea of nutrition (3.55± 0.65), ability to feed children on time and teaching children to avoid talking when eating (3.38 ± 0.48) among others, 16 clothing skills which include: changing children’s cloths anytime they are dirty (3.47 ± 0.46), clothing children with woolen fabrics in cold weather (3.55 ± 0.54) and allowing children to dress themselves atimes (3.33 ± 0.51) among others, 11 toilet training skills which include: ability to toilet training the child using potty (3.68 ± 0.53), cleaning the potty immediately after the child finishes defecating (3.57 ± 0.71) and washing hands properly with soap after visiting toilet (3.39 ± 0.55) among others, 21 interacting skills which include: ability to listen carefully to the children and their parents (3.50 ± 0.56), being clear and specific when interacting with the children’s parents (3.51 ± 0.61) and ability to recognize the right of the child (3.46 ± 0.58) among others, 11 safety skills which include: ability to know what to do in emergency cases (3.50 ± 0.50), keeping children within the school premises to avoid going to the roads (3.69 ± 0.54) and being vigilant at all times with children (3.54 ± 0.49) among others and 14 hygiene skills which include: thorough washing and drying hands before feeding the children (3.65 ± 0.47), avoiding coughing/sneezing into children’s food (3.67 ± 0.60) and ability to ensure that children’s toilet facilities are clean (3.57 ± 0.46) among others for caring for pre-school children in the area. The responses of the discussants used for the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) also helped a great deal in identifying the skills needed by caregivers for effective care-giving of children in early child care centres. There are no significant (p < 0.05) difference in the mean ratings of the responses of care-givers, Home Economics teachers, early childcare experts and Nurses on the care-giving skills needed by the care-givers in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Based on the above findings, the study recommended that: the Federal and state governments through their respective administrators of pre-school education should help package the identified care-giving skills into programmes for training care-givers for proper physical, social and psychological development of the child, that there should be adequate efforts by the government to provide framework that will ensure timely and constant in-service training to the care-givers for updating their care giving skills.