공사립유치원 학부모의 기관 선택 이유 및 만족도 분석

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to propose directions to improve public and private kindergartens in South Korea by examining parents’ choice and satisfaction level of early childhood education institutions. This study was on the online survey of 1,000 parents(500 parents in public kindergartens and 500 parents in private kindergartens) who lived in 16 different provinces and had at least one child enrolled in kindergarten in 2012. The target population was selected based on a proportional allocation of the number of children and areas. The findings of the study were as follows: First, geographic proximity, reasonable educational costs, school facilities were shown as important factors when parents choose kindergartens for their children. Second, parents preferred public kindergarten to private kindergartens and public child-care centers. In addition, most of the parents were satisfied by kindergartens of their children. Third, the parents in public kindergarten were more satisfied by the educational costs than the parents in privatekindergartens. Four, some parents pointed out the high teacher-child ratio and the lack of teachers’ professionalism as reasons for their dissatisfaction. Adequate teacher-child ratio, appropriate capacity of the classroom, diverse after-class programs were selected by parents as important factors to improve kindergartens. The survey results suggested the need to increase accessibility of public kindergartens by expanding public kindergartens in big cities. The results also suggested the need to reduce teacher-child ratio by considering NAEYC(2012)’ criteria, and to increase teachers’ professionalism by reducing teachers’ workloads and providing substitute teachers.