Abstract:
Over-schooling at the pre-primary school is a serious violation of the provisions of National Policy on Education. It is seen as over burdening, over tasking and over-tutoring of the pre-primary school children. The study was carried out to ascertain the perception of parents on over-schooling of these young children using Onitsha educational zone as the area of study. Five research questions and two null hypotheses were formulated while a descriptive survey design was employed. The population of the study was made up of 2,440 parents of young children who attend private pre-primary schools in the Onitsha educational zone. Parents’ Perception on Over-schooling of Children Questionnaire (PPOCQ) was used for data collection. The questionnaire was validated by three experts while the trial testing was done outside the area of study. Cronbach alpha method was used to establish the internal consistency of the instrument. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and t-test statistic was used to test the hypotheses formulated to guide this study. The findings of the research showed that there was over-schooling at this level of education, but unfortunately the parents were ignorant of its negative influences on the young children. The study recommended among other things that parents should be part of the decision making body of the pre-primary schools, that is, being part of the Parent-Teacher Association of the schools.
