Abstract

 The study examined improving public early childhood Education Centres in Umuahia North education zone to ensure standard for national development. Four research questions and four hypotheses were posed for the study. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. A sample size of 193 representing 10% of parents and 102 representing 60% of teachers were drawn from a population of 1926 of parents and 170 of teachers all in from the early childhood Education Schools in Umuahia North Education zone using the Stratified random Sampling technique. The instrument used for the study was 26 items questionably for teachers and parents titled "Improving Public Early Childhood Education to Ensure Standard for National Development Questionnaire (IPECEESNDQ) developed by the researcher. The instrument was validated by experts in education of measurement and the Cronbach Alpha Statistics yielded a reliability index of 0.79. Mean and Standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t- test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of Significance. The findings revealed that both respondents to a high extent perceived early childhood Education as the starting point towards achieving national development. The study concluded that there is no significant difference in the mean scores of teachers and parents on improving public early childhood education in Nigeria to ensure standard for National development. Among the recommendations made was that government, non-governmental organization, host communities and Education managers should collaborate to endure strict compliance, to its Educational policies, place adequate monitor, supervision, infrastructure, provide adequate facilities, equipment and other requisites for better outcomes among pupils to ensure National Development.