Evaluation of families' early childhood education service preferences and education expenditures

In this study, it is aimed to investigate the institutional early childhood care and education (ECCE) schools preferred by the families during the ECCE period as well as the educational expenditures made by them. 206 families sending their children to public and private ECCE schools in Çankırı, Turkey, participated in this study in the 2020-2021 academic year. This is a descriptive study in scanning model. The data were collected by means of a survey. In the analysis of the obtained data, descriptive statistics, nonparametric Mann Whitney U test was employed. In order to bring out whether there is a significant correlation between the parameters, Tamhane T2 test was utilized. The findings were analyzed in terms of two factors. The first factor is the preference and the second is expenditure. During the ECCE period, the average education expenditure of the families having participated in the study is 19163.07 TL. The families sending their children to public ECCE schools spend 1958.43 TL on education whereas those sending their children to a private ECCE school spend 17204.64 TL. From the findings, it is concluded that when choosing ECCE schools, families mostly consider the professional competence of the teachers, the hygiene of the schools and whether they offer a safe environment. The education expenditures of the families sending their children to private ECCE schools are higher than those sending their children to public ECCE schools In addition, it has been revealed thatthe parameters such as gender of the child, age of the mother, number of children in the family, ownership of the school, education time, education level of the parents, occupation of the parents, working status of the parents, income level of the family, ownership of the house, type of the house or apartment and its rental cost, type of transportation to school, distance between school and home, number of people in the family and whether the family receive support are determinative in families' expenditure pattern for ECCE.