Parent’s Loyalty in Pre-Primary Education: A Case Study at Islamic Nursery Centre

Parent’s Loyalty in Pre-Primary Education: A Case Study at Islamic Nursery Centre

Azizi A. Aziz, Khairunnisa Mohd Azamri, Ahmad Suffian Mohd Zahari^*, Zalinawati Abdullah, Najihah Marha Yaacob

University Technology MARA, Terengganu Branch, Malaysia

^*Corresponding Author

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.903SEDU0069

Received: 20 January 2025; Accepted: 30 January 2025; Published: 04 March 2025

ABSTRACT

Pre education is playing the vital roles in determining the quality of the childcare development quality. This study is to identify the relationship between parents’ loyalty, service quality, price fairness and parents’ satisfaction at Islamic Nursery Centre (PASTI) in Kemaman District, Malaysia. To analyze these relationships, 8 locations of PASTI, and 144 respondents have been chosen for this research. Purposive sampling and questionnaires are used to gather the data of research. The overall result demonstrated the positive perceptions of the respondents in relation to the variables being studied in this research. The implication of this study will give beneficial factor to parents, teacher and future researcher in determining the factor to consider for their childcare education. Towards the end of this research, the researchers present several opinions for certain point of view to focus on regarding the problem that has been stated. The research also gives further suggestion for the next research.

Keywords: Islamic Nursery Centre, Parent Loyalty, Pre-education, Parent satisfaction

INTRODUCTION

Early childhood education is an important part of balanced future learning. Childcare or day care is the term which outlines the childcare services provided throughout the day that the child’s parents or legal guardian gives to other person to take care of their child, typically the person who has no relationship with the family or someone who is outside of the family. Reports have shown improvement in the growth of the children care services all over the world.

As developing the nation is among the concern growths for Malaysian government, more emphasis has been placed on early childhood education; hence the hike on the number of childcare centers (Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, 2007). In Malaysia, the increase of maternal rates of labor force participation is one of the reasons for the growth in childcare centers. Many researchers have shown that the early exposure to childcare education while the children are young has a strong impact on their survival, growth, and development (Carolan, McIsaac, Richard, Turner, & McLean, 2020, Singh, & Ngadni, 2023, Yasmin, & Rumi, 2020, Yee, Radzi, & Mamat, 2022, Ramasamy, Singh, & Singh, 2024, Shehe Abdalla, Mligi, & Abdalla, 2023, Doherty et al., 2006, Iram & Butt 2004; Liu, Yeung & Farmer, 2001). Iram and Butt (2004), the development of the brain is strongly influenced by early environment factors during their childhood, which can induce or hinder process and transfer of learning skills throughout their adolescent years. The experience faced by children and having more parents being selective of childcare and early education for their children indicated strong effects on children’s development.

During Pre-Independence era in Malaysia, the early education or kindergarten was introduced to the wealth society in this country. In Malaysia, the set-up of kindergarten does not require high educational certificate due to non-existing of strict regulation to operate the any kindergarten. Pre-school institution offers different based of medium of instructions such as Malay, English or Chinese as well as the myriad curriculum designs, religious orientation, and operation under local or international companies and political affiliations (Puteri, et. al, 2005). Currently, the pre-school identity, whether it is a brand especially local or foreign franchise or without a brand, is operated by an individual owner or society in community. Another crucial highlight is that a child’s gateway education should be a memory filled with challenging and fun learning experiences (Chun, 2007). Pre-school is the child’s first formal educational experience, and therefore it is easier to teach, form and develop moral values and discipline in childhood with the religious based being embedded as part of the teaching and learning. There are various forms of early childhood education offered to parents in Malaysia. Some research revealed that formal approach is still being performed widely in many Malaysia preschools as the main medium for teaching and learning (Yasmin, & Rumi, 2020, Ramasamy et al., 2024, Ali & Mahamad, 2015, Abu Bakar, Daud, Nordin & Abdullah, 2015). In preparation for consistent spike in the number of children attending preschools, the quality of preschool’s curriculum must be maintained at the highest level. This is to ensure that the children gain the most benefit in the key stage of their lives to build a resilient human capital to develop the nation in the next future generation. Islamic Budding Centre (PASTI) is one among the leading early childhood education centres in Malaysia. In line with the concern to pave ways for the children to be a catalyst to the nation’s development, PASTI offers a special pre-school curriculum for the education of children from four to six years old under the philosophy of National Education, Islamic Education Philosophy (PASTI, 2004).

Due to rapid economic growth, there are strong demands on the need of preschool in Malaysia. The demands provide an avenue and create more opportunities for women to be involved in labor energy to become the preschool teacher and administration work force. According to Claassen, (2012), the sense of childish has only been felt by the women which in turn calls for the women to take a part in preschool development to educate and teach the children at preschool. The contribution of women in labor force was around 36 percent in Malaysia based on Stivens, (2000). In Terengganu, there are many other preschools to choose from other than PASTI such as TABIKA, TADIKA, TASKI and so on. As for the children who enroll in PASTI, they normally apply what they learn in preschool in their daily life especially praying, reciting doa and verses from Quran and many other Islamic teachings and learning in PASTI. Available research evidence reveals that formal approach is being used in pre-school as one of the main mediums for learning and teaching (Ali & Mahamod, 2015). Kids who went through formal approach in preschool tend to perform better when they continue studying in primary school as they are more disciplined and ethical. In this context, it indicates that the teaching process has been conducted very well by the teachers. In addition, there have been high demands by the parents for preschools each child between aged of five and six years old. Therefore, parental decision is crucial in selecting preschool for their children that can give them a good and quality preschool education. (Carolan, et al., 2020, Singh, & Ngadni, 2023, Ndijuye, Mligo, & Machumu, 2020, Yasmin, & Rumi, 2020, Yee et al., 2022, Cryer & Burchinal, 1997; Woodhead, 1996).

The focus of this study is PASTI as one of the preschool centers that places emphasis on Islamic education. The center is committed to provide quality platform for children to learn at the preschool by using specific methods that could create interest for the children to engage better in learning as well as to entice the parents. This might lead many parents to send their children to preschool centers which uphold Islamic way of teaching and learning as well as practical way of life. The researcher has conducted a study to identify the methods used by PASTI teachers in teaching as well as the strength of those methods. If the right methods are not provided by the center to the teachers, or if the methods are not properly implemented, problems will arise. Incomplete daily lesson plan is identified as one among many problems faced by the teachers (Chong & Cheah, 2009). On another note, as the teachers who are in the process of learning to teach, non-systematic teaching management has high impacts on them (Mohammad Sani, 2007). Under the notion of teaching the children using the right method, it could also be a pulling factor that many parents send their children to PASTI because they are very satisfied in the technique implemented at PASTI by the teachers.

Relationship between Pre-Primary School and Parent Loyalty

In Malaysia, the first established early education pre-school was run by Christian missionaries. Pre-school is an institution where children are ready to enter the social and educational environment (Shehe Abdalla, et al, 2023, Dahari & Zainurin, 2011, Ramasamy et al., 2024). Primary school can also be considered as pre-school for the preparation of the first year. In general, early childhood education starts as early as three until six years old in Malaysia. Pre-school institution offers different based of medium of instructions such as Malay, English or Chinese as well as the myriad curriculum designs, religious orientation, and operation under local or international companies and political affiliations (Yee et al., 2022, Puteri, et al, 2005). Pre-school being branded as the latest trends that is usually managed under a local brand whilst non-branded is managed by individual ownership. There are many types of pre-schools, but Ministry of Education only controls limited types of preschools and primary school such as KEMAS, TADIKA, KAFA, while NGO pre-schools like ABIM, private schools like Montessori, Smart Reader, and also religion based such as Tahfiz Al-Quran in Islamic and also church-based kindergarten itself. There are also various languages that are used as medium of teaching and learning such as Chinese, English, Mandarin and Malay. Those that employ a combination of different curriculum like English, Mathematics and Islamic studies are called hybrid pre-schools.

The first or early years of educations children enroll in transcend a very special experience in children’ lives. A child entering primary schools will experience new environment that places the training into practice to gain more social interaction among them. This shows that it is easier to develop and manage themselves to practice self-reliance and other good values since they were younger. The appropriate learning materials and parental support which go hand in hand can enhance student self-learning (Ndijuye et al., 2020, Nuzha, Johari, Mas Ayu, Siti, & 2019, Chris & Rosemary, 2004). The activities performed by children with parental intervention can positively affect their achievement in learning. The parental intervention in early childhood education can also affect the learning process towards achieving successful performance in education for their children. The constant support by parents will reflect positive relationship on the improvements of their children.

Parent Satisfaction and Parents Loyalty

Early education in pre-school focuses on growing children’s cognition processes to obtain skills such as memory, attention and thinking as well as motor skills such growth in social emotional like being a good friend, playing toys with friends, comparison between good and bad attitude. For the most part, Early Childhood Education covers the range from babies from 0 to one year, kids from one to two years, children in kindergarten from five to six years and primary school from seven to eight years. The environments for children in early education childhood are unique because the environment and surrounding will be one of those influences for children. This shows that an improvement in examination will enhance the success for children at school.

Parent satisfaction can be determined in many ways that will seem to have reached the wildest acceptance, which is satisfaction as the preferred valuation after a particular transaction (Nuzha et al, 2019, Bastos & Gallego, 2008). Parent satisfaction can be defined as the results of the evaluation or estimation in which multiple observations have been done to measure the actual performance with the service expectations (Singh, & Ngadni, 2023, Lin, 2003). The customer satisfaction relies on whether the service has met the standards they perceive in mind (Shehe Abdalla et al., 2023, Gerpott et al, 2001), which is also determined by the fulfilment requirements (Hill, Roche & Allen, 2007). A satisfied customer may be influenced to continue using the same service or purchasing product of that company, while the dissatisfied in customer might change service or product from another company (Kolter & Armstrong, 2012). Through contrasting perceived product or service quality and expectations, Kotler, and Keller (2006) provide a broad of definition in satisfaction by describing happiness or dissatisfaction.

To create customer satisfaction for parents, meeting their needs is crucial. Salisbury et al. (1997) mentioned the way to improve the school performance is by increasing parents’ satisfaction. Their satisfaction can be measured by using subjective approaches that evaluate the primary data obtained from the parents via questionnaire (Vij & Bedi, 2016). For example, the children who attend kindergarten are being used as a subjective approach to parental satisfaction that is to determine on the decision their children’s behavior, the children satisfaction and enjoyable experience and the decision leaving their children at the kindergarten.

Service Quality and Parent Loyalty

A crucial issue in service management is Service Quality (Clottey et al, 2008) through which the quality of service has become more significant in-service sector (Ma et al, 2005). Furthermore, Parasuraman et. al., (1988) defined customer perceived service quality as a global judgement or attitude related to the superiority of a service relative to competing offering. Meanwhile, Nuzha et al, (2019) and Bitner and Hubbert (1994), “it is customer’s overall impression of the relative inferiority/superiority of the organization and its services”. Zeithaml and Bitnear (1996) sees “service quality as the delivery of excellent or superior service relative to customer expectation”. Gronroos (1984) described the term as the evaluation results of expectation comparison that the customers have received.

Parasuraman et. al., (1985,1988) viewed service quality as an evaluation between the deliveries of the service as compared to perception of the service. This model covers ten standards of general service quality that are relevant, and the standards include communication, reliability, responsiveness, tangibles, credibility, security, efficiency, access and understanding customers. As such, five factors analysis embodies the dimensions: empathy, tangibles, responsibility, assurance, and reliability (Parasuraman et. al., 1988).

Parent loyalty is strongly influenced by the quality-of-service providers. Trust represents the value of the service that resonates a good significant influence on parental loyalty. To measure the level of loyalty at the kindergartens, the three main structures to be analyzed are teacher’s relationship with children, classrooms, and education environment. One of the current methods to analyses relationship that the teacher makes with his/her student is through online video calls when the teacher assigns some work for the children to complete. The environment in the classroom would either make the children feel like it is their second home or would make feel like they are in a foreign place. The environment at the kindergartens could have good significant implication which is observable between the principals or the administrators with the parents as the communications can send positive signals that their children are in a safe and secure place.

Price Fairness and Parent Loyalty

According to Kotler and Armstrong (2010), price is the amount of money charged for a product or service and the sum of the values that customers exchange for the benefits of having or using the product or service while Stanton, Michael, and Bruce (1994) defined price as the amount of money or goods needed to acquire some combination of other goods and its companying services. But the marketing literature showed researchers’ inclination towards price fairness in relation with customer loyalty (Hermann et al., 2007). Price fairness refers to consumers’ assessment of whether a seller’s price is reasonable, acceptable, or justifiable (Xia et al., 2007). Parent loyalty is a significant evaluation that can be related to price fairness. Therefore, decision to charge reasonable price will lead to parent loyalty instead of influencing their satisfaction. Research has shown when it boils down to loyalty and satisfaction level, it corresponded to customers’ choice to accept certain price (Martin-Consuegra et al., 2007) and was concluded that when customer loyalty is concerned, price perceptions have direct effects while price fairness has indirect effects on it. Lommeruda and Sergard (2003) stated that satisfaction is largely impacted by the price and the manner it is offered. At times, brand loyalty plays a major role in brand preference as not all customers are sensitive to price. Evidently, this sheds some light on the reasons for parents to stay loyal with the same preschool to send their child and his/her siblings.

Parental loyalty is the benchmark to be utilized for work performance or product analysis rather than parents’ expectations. Some parents are not willing to pay expensive fees compared to other parents who use the same service or product. This indicates that price fairness will affect parents’ expectation which will influence their ability as customers. For example, learning kits like stationery and learning tools like textbooks especially the ones that come in sets and relatively high in cost are viewed useful as it offers the same benefit value in exchange for the amount they paid for. Price, according to Kotler and Keller (2012) and Kusdiyah (2012), can be measured according to several pointers such as affordable, fair, discounted, suitability and competitor.

METHODOLOGY

Sampling Frame

The sampling frame consists of all lists within the population that we want to take samples such as institutions, households, or individuals. All parents who sent their children to PASTI are the selected respondent whose responses from the questionnaires will be studied.

Population

A group of people or entities are the population in which findings will be gathered and analyzed. The population must be defined in detailed before a sample is taken. Full attention must be taken to avoid taking sample beyond the population because the population attributes to the subjects or respondent who are selected in this study. Population is also referred as the whole set of people, matters of people, manners of interest or events desired by the researcher to explore. According to Sekaran (2010), population portrayed as the combination sample to suit together some assigned purpose. According to PASTI Data in year 2022, there are 12 identified locations of PASTI is identify in Kemaman district as per table below.

Table 1: The 12 locations of PASTI in Kemaman District

There are 2 categories of PASTI: Normal Class and Elite Class. The categorization is given due to the facility or services provided in each class. There are 4 locations of Normal Class i.e., Al-Falah, Al-Jihadi, As-Siddiq and Raudatul Athfal meanwhile Elite Class has 8 locations from Elit Al-Ekhlass 1 to Elit Al-Ekhlass. For this study, the researcher has selected PASTI Elit Al-Ekhlass in Taman Banggol Permai due to isolated location of PASTI and the facility provided in the selected location is almost the same. PASTI Taman Banggol Permai consists of 6 centres of PASTI such as Elit Al-Ekhlass, Elit Al-Ekhlass 2,3,4,5 and 6 with a total up of 265 students in 2023.

Sampling Technique

Purposive sampling technique, under non-probability sampling, has been chosen by the researcher for this study. When selected respondents from the identified population are willing to provide information to be utilized as method of data collection, it is termed as purposive sampling. The researcher’s inclusion in approaching and getting the participation of the respondents will continue until the required sample size has been reached. This technique has been chosen by the researcher because it is more convenient to approach the respondent i.e., parent or adult at the selected location. More evidently, purposive sampling technique, as stated before, offers more convenient elements to the researcher purposive sampling is cheap and easy to conduct, but there is no way of knowing how justified and represented the research will be. It is often used to obtain some quick information but in this process the researcher might sometimes discover that the result is so indisputable that there is no incentive to collect further information. To collect the data, the questionnaires will be disseminated to parents who send their child to PASTI. Their responses will be able to contribute to the depth of the objective the researcher hopes to cover.

Sample Size

The sub population or sample size to be studied for the purpose of to make the reference to the total population that will visualize the findings of this research. With reference to census method, the sample size and the population size is equivalent for this study, thus the researcher plans to use the parents whose child is registered with PASTI as representative sample. This is because the more the sample size is used, the more data the researcher can analyze.  However, the limitation of this research is time restriction and limited respondents, only covering the sample which is the parents from the selected PASTI. With reference to Bougie and Sekaran (2010), sample size is a part of population size. As stated in rule of thumb, the valid minimum level for respondent rate is 30 while for maximum level, to select sample size is 500. Furthermore, Sekaran (2010), indicated sample size must be chosen precisely to obtain accurate data that will lead to better sampling. For this study, the population size for children attending PASTI is 265 people. Due to the use of selective respondent with census method, the sample size will be 265 respondent who is all the parents in PASTI Elit Al-Ekhlass who will be the respondents of this study.

Table 2: The list of Pasti Elit Al-Ekhlass

FINDINGS/RESULTS

Demographic Profile

Descriptive analysis provides information regarding demographic variables namely their education level, occupation, age, monthly income, gender, and marital status. The next demographic data presentation focuses on questions and concerns about PASTI, and among them are how did they find out PASTI, is PASTI their first choice, do they have any expectation from PASTI, are they satisfied with their child’s academic performance in PASTI, do they have any family members in PASTI and do they have any suggestion to improve the quality of PASTI.

Gender

This section demonstrates the background of 144 respondents in this study. Most respondents are female (n = 105, 72.9%) and the rest are male (n = 39, 27.1%). The different between male and female respondents are 45.8%.

Age

For age of the respondents, there are 101 respondents (70.1%) between 31 to 40 years, followed by 22 respondents (15.3%) age between 20 to 30 years, 19 respondents (13.2%) age between 41 to 50 years and 2 respondents (1.4%) age between 51 to 60 years.

Marital Status

As for marital status, most respondents are married (n = 139, 96.5%) and the rest widower or widow (n = 4, 2.8%) and single (n = 1, 0.7%).

Educational Level

Figure 1.4: Distributions of level of education of respondents.

In term of highest level of education, there are 50 respondents (34.7%) having bachelor’s degree, followed by 46 respondents (31.9%) who have SPM. Next, there are 11 respondents (7.6%) who have master’s degree. For PhD level there are 2 respondents (1.4%) and for others, there are 35 respondents (24.3%) which means they have no proper education with PMR level only.

Occupation

Figure 1.5: Distributions of occupation respondents.

The highest employment number of the respondents is private sector which is 67 respondents (46.5%). Meanwhile 40 respondents (27.8%) are unemployed and only 37 respondents (25.7%) are from government sector.

Monthly Income

Table 3: Distributions of monthly income respondents.

The highest monthly income is less than RM1000 which is 34 respondents (23.6%). Meanwhile 26 respondents (18.1%) from RM1001 to RM2000 and Rm2001 to RM3000, 20 respondents (13.9%) from RM3001 to RM4000, 18 respondents (12.5%) from RM6001 and above monthly income, 12 respondents (8.3%) from RM4001 to RM5000 and 8 respondents (5.6%) from RM5001 to RM6000.

How do you know about PASTI?

Table 4: Distribution of how you know about PASTI.

Most of the respondents who knew about PASTI from friends are 78 respondents (n = 78, 54.2%) followed by siblings (n = 35, 24.3%), media social (n = 26, 18.1%) and newspaper (n = 5, 3.5%).

Is PASTI your first choice?

Table 5: Distribution of does PASTI first choices.

133 respondents selected ‘Yes’ (92.4%) that PASTI is their first choice while 11 respondents (7.6%) stated that PASTI is not their first choice.

Do you have any expectation from PASTI after having enrolled their child in PASTI?

Table 6: Distribution of any expectation from PASTI after having enrolled their child in PASTI

63.2% chose ‘Yes’ (n = 91) that they have some expectations from PASTI after having their child enrolled in PASTI. Meanwhile 53 respondents said they had no expectation from PASTI (36.8%).

Are you satisfied with your child’s academic performance in PASTI?

Table 7: Distribution of satisfaction with child’s academic performance in PASTI.

A total of 134 respondents (93.1%) mentioned that they are satisfied with their child’s academic performance in PASTI, while 10 respondents (6.9%) stated they are not satisfied.

Do you have any family members working at PASTI?

Table 8: Distribution of family member working at PASTI.

52.1% said that they have family members attached to PASTI before this and 47.9% stated none of their family members ever work for PASTI.

Do you have any suggestion to improve the quality of PASTI?

Table 9: Distribution of suggestion to improve the quality of PASTI.

102 respondents (70.8%) did not have any suggestion to improve the quality of PASTI. Only 42 respondents (29.2%) said they had something to suggest in improving the quality of PASTI.

Correlation Analysis

Table 10 shows the principle or rule of thumb for the correlation coefficient which is applied in this study. Value of correlation coefficient that exceeds 0.90 and 0.80 indicate multicollinearity exist (Hair et al., 2010).

Table 10: Correlation between Independent and Dependent variables

**. Correlation is Significant at the 0.01 Level (2-Tailed).

The Pearson correlation coefficient is utilized in this study to analyse the strength of the association between dependent and independent variables. Table 10 shows the results of the correlation analysis that examined the relationship of service quality, price fairness and parents’ satisfaction with parent’s loyalty. The correlation between service quality with parent’s loyalty is 0.731, which indicates there is high relationships between these two variables. The p-value = 0.000 is less than 0.01, the values can be concluded as there was a significant relationship between service quality with parent’s loyalty. The correlation between parent’s loyalty with parents’ satisfaction shows the value of -0.056, which indicates there is very low relationship between parent’s loyalty and parents’ satisfaction. The p-value = 0.503 is more than 0.01, the values can be concluded as there was no significant relationship between parents’ satisfaction with parent’s loyalty. Meanwhile, the correlation between price fairness with parent’s loyalty shows the value of 0.831 which indicates there is high relationship between these two variables. The p-value = 0.000 is less than 0.01, the values can be concluded as there was a significant relationship between price fairness and parent’s loyalty.

Multiple Linear Regression Analysis

Table 11 illustrates the results of multiple linear regression for service quality, price fairness and parents’ satisfactions with parent’s loyalty. The results indicated that all independent variables explained 84.9% of the parent’s loyalty (R² = 0.721, F = 120.346, p-value = 0.000 < 0.05). The remaining of 15.1% of total variation in dependent variables is explained by another variables (exclusion factors).

Table 11: Model Summary

Table 12: ANOVA

Table 13: Multiple Regression Analysis

y=α+b_1 x_1+b_2 x_2+b_3 x_3+ε

y = 0.317 + 0.277 x1 + 0.625 x2 + 0.037 x3 + ε

where:

a = intercepts, y = Parent’s Loyalty, x₁ = Service quality, x₂ = Price fairness, x₃ = Parent’s Satisfaction, ε = error term

Alternative Hypothesis (H₁): There is a significant relationship between parent’s loyalty and service quality.

Table 14: Analysis for Hypothesis 1

Since the p-value (Sig.) is less than 0.05, the alternative hypothesis can be accepted. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant relationship between service quality with parent’s loyalty.

Alternative Hypothesis (H₂): There is a significant relationship between parent’s loyalty and price fairness.

Table 15: Analysis for Hypothesis 2

The alternative hypothesis is accepted since the p-value (Sig.) is less than 0.05. The study concludes that there is a significant relationship between price fairness with parent’s loyalty.

Alternative Hypothesis (H₃): There is a significant relationship between parents’ satisfaction and parent’s loyalty.

Table 16: Analysis for Hypothesis 3

The table shows the p-value (Sig.) is more than 0.05, and therefore the alternative hypothesis is rejected. It can be stated that that there is no significant relationship between parents’ satisfaction with parent’s loyalty.

DISCUSSION

Generally, the result of this study depicted the understanding and knowledge of others towards PASTI’s capabilities and performance in the field of early childhood education. The childcare service is provided in order to take care of someone’s children by having them paying and relying on someone who is not related or outside of the family. The study conducted by Zubaidah Ibrahim (1993) stated the contribution and the role of PASTI in the childhood education. The primary focus of her study was to identify and determine the importance of childhood education in contribution towards vision 2020. The level of knowledge from the parents toward the environments and managements of PASTI was particularly emphasized from the beginning but was not fully explored due to the limited time being invested to get active involvements from parents in the activities or programs organized by the PASTI (Zubaidah, 1993).

As for the findings of this study, a total of 144 parents took part in answering the questionnaire whereby most the respondents were female (105) while the remaining (39) were male. However, the parents already knew about the objective in PASTI which is to produce young generations of excellence and talented person who understands and applies the concept of their teaching which is to balance their focus of existence for both the world and also hereafter. These findings clearly resonated the parent’s knowledge about the objective of PASTI. Coherently, it would indirectly give an impact on positive attitude towards Muslim children enrolling in PASTI as investigated by Asmah (2016). Hence, these results illustrated the concept that is suitable for early stages of the children’s educations (Seri Hayati Husain, 2010). Furthermore, the findings of this study also found out that parents would make the best choices in the kindergarten selection for their children. It is formed on the service quality that are usually conceptualized based on the comparison in actual perfection in performances with the service expected as explained by Bloemeret (1999). In relation to service expected and service quality, the parents has viewed PASTI as platform for their children to benefit from pre-primary education, and one of the reasons for enrolling their children to PASTI is the low fee payments compared to other service care or kindergartens in Kemaman district, Terengganu.

The fee payment, however, is not consistent and does not have regulated standard rate because the fee depends on the state and region on each PASTI branch. For examples, there are PASTI branches in different villages in Kemaman which only charge rather low fee that is RM65.00 per month. This evidently reflects the welfare of the society and also awareness to provide the provision of early childhood education based on Islam which is one of the main foundations and emphasis related to the establishment of PASTI. If there is a child coming from a less fortunate family, that child will still have equal opportunity and have a chance of pacing a bright future in which he or she can be enrolled in PASTI to obtain education from the age of 4 years. These children from low-income family would be able to follow the learning very well and achieve a good performance (Fadzliana, 2006).

Based on the test that has been conducted, the results exhibited that parent loyalty has significant relationship with service quality. According to Parasuraman et.al., (1985 & 1988), service quality is regarded as an assessment between the deliveries of the service as compared to perception to the service. Parent loyalty is strongly influenced by the quality of the services provided; thus, the trust represents the value of the service that resonates a good significant influence on parent loyalty. This is because according to Bitner and Hubbert (1994) it all boils down to customer’s overall impression of the relative inferiority or superiority of the organization and the services they provide. Furthermore, the findings of this study also manifested the parent’s satisfactions toward PASTI. Parent’s satisfaction can be defined as the results of evaluations in which multiple observations that have been done for the purpose of measuring the service expectations with the actual performance (Lin, 2003). The outcome presented that no significant relationship between parents’ loyalty and parents’ satisfaction. To explain further on this the insignificant of relationship between loyalty and satisfaction, Kotler and Keller (2006) provided a broad definition of satisfaction by describing happiness or dissatisfaction. Due to that, loyalty is another element to be fulfilled in term broad definition to be carried to become satisfied. Even when the parents are satisfied with the product, they most probably cannot be loyal or vice versa.

As parents’ loyalty has significant relationship with price fairness, competitive price offer will create loyalty of the parents because relatively low fee is the most significant driving factor for the parents to select pre-primary education care but at the same time it requires to have the good quality of the service. Xia et. al., (2007) defined price fairness as consumers assessment of whether a seller’s price is justified, acceptable, or reasonable in which will have an impact on generating the sense of loyalty for the parents if the amount spent, according to them, is reasonable. This study has identified that the price fairness is the variable that has the most significant relationship with the parents’ loyalty as compared to the service quality and parents’ satisfaction which clearly exemplified having no significant with the parent’s loyalty.

CONCLUSION

Nowadays, PASTI is facing quite a challenge in comparison to other pre-primary educations centers considering the many factors for the parents to make a decision that can be the influence ranging from economic situation, political environment, to purchasing the power of consumers as well as to determine the outcomes from PASTI. Loyal and satisfaction is a good for someone that already have used it. The feeling of loyal that can be feel from it. This can be showed when the parents may be a loyal is more than the parents expected because the parents know that the price that have been provided by PASTI that are more on the good syllabus of Islamic religion.

This research will give an impact and provide a bigger picture about PASTI as pre-primary education and is not limited to the sentiment that resonated by some people. The sentiment is likely formed due to the image of PASTI operating on its basis with Islamic background whilst indirectly connected to a political party in Malaysia. The foundation of PASTI is not to develop the children into becoming political leaders but the intention is objectively to deliver their pre-primary education mission to balance with internal and external education needed to create the new generation that is willing to serve the nation and prosperous Malaysia. The management of PASTI is expected to establish the curriculum that meets with the requirement of Malaysian National Education by synchronizing its education need and wants with the Malaysian Government. The facilities at PASTI are to be developed and provided to meet the parents’ expectation to retain the loyalty of the parents and communicate reassurance of quality education offered by the management in giving pre-primary education to the new generation.

The teachers and enablers at PASTI must be equipped and trained with the most advance knowledge and skills to manage and teach new generation enrolling in PASTI pre-primary education. The interaction between teacher and pupils must gravitate on the concept of open mindedness while instilling self-confidence among pupils to ensure they reach their best potentials in align with holistic teaching and learning at PASTI. The syllabus and curriculum for PASTI must be reliable and meet the requirement expectation of current education in which to develop the pupils to become future leaders and inspire them to contribute the robust growth of the nation. The development of the individual’s personality of every pupil in PASTI must be of highest concern to seek for parent’s loyalty and presenting the benefits to the pupils itself in preparation to enter the primary school. While the findings provide valuable insights for the nursery’s strategic development, future research could explore broader demographic contexts to deepen the understanding of parental loyalty across different educational settings.

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