Up to 25 nurseries on university and college campuses are under threat of closure or have been closed during the summer holidays, according to trade union Unison, which is leading a national campaign of protest.
The campaigners complain that decisions to shut the settings have been taken on purely financial grounds with the educational establishments ignoring their wider roles and responsibilities in promoting economic and social wellbeing.
Megan Pacey, chief executive of Early Education, says that while college nurseries enable people to access higher and further education, settings in academic institutions also often act as beacons of excellence for other childcare practitioners in the area.
'You often find that some of the most effective practice happens in nurseries attached to universities and tertiary colleges.
'The provisions almost become like teaching hospitals. If you get early years settings attached to institutions where early years is being taught they can become such effective settings that others learn from them.'
'About 25 college nurseries across the country have closed or are under threat,' says Denise Bertuchi, assistant national officer at Unison. 'Institutions waited until the last days of the summer term to announce these nursery closures, when staff and students were going away, making it harder for them to campaign against it - it is disgusting.'
Representatives from Unison, the National Union of Students and UCU, the lecturers and academics union, have joined forces in the campaign and are taking their grievances to a meeting next week with David Lammy, the higher education minister. The delegation will be quick to remind him that earlier this year, when he spoke at the launch of an NUS research document, 'Meet the Parents', on the problems facing student parents, he said, 'We're widening the doors to education and in that context we need to support student parents.'
Lord Mandelson, in his first major speech on higher education since becoming Business and Innovation and Skills Secretary, recently told university vice-chancellors that they had to do more to widen access to higher education in order to meet the challenges posed in the report published by former cabinet minister Alan Milburn highlighting the lack of social mobility in the top professions.
Mrs Bertuchi says, 'These decisions to close college nurseries affect people's ability to continue on courses and people's ability to access courses. These decisions fly in the face of the agenda to raise aspirations.
'Universities are facing funding cuts and there is reduced funding available. We know some institutions do have problems but a lot of them have reserves and are not short of a bob or two. They are choosing to target cuts on their nurseries because they think they are a soft touch.'
IMPACT ASSESSMENT
'The reasons for closing a nursery are, as far as I can see, always financial,' says Geraldine Smith, research and development officer at the NUS. 'Sometimes institutions, when their nursery is not profit-making, do not see the full value of the nursery and that it provides a service which enables people to take part in education or to work in education.
'We don't have statistics on the numbers of student parents or numbers of college nurseries and that is something we want to collect as part of the campaign.
'Public authorities such as universities and colleges are legally obliged to carry out an Equality Impact Assessment when they make a decision to close a facility and have to assess if the decision is going to have an impact on a group of people and consult with them. We are finding that this is not happening. The decisions are being made purely on financial grounds without due regard to the impact of a closure decision on the nursery staff, who are predominately women, as well as the impact on the parents, who are predominately women.
'The Equality and Human Rights Commission can enforce the law and the trade unions have been in touch with the commission to try to get them to do this.'
The 110-place nursery on the Northenden Campus of Manchester College, which was built with Neighbourhood Nursery and Big Lottery funding, closed on 31 July because it was losing money, despite a campaign led by Unison that it should be retained albeit with reduced capacity.
'It is so short-sighted,' says Sittu Ahmed, Unison convenor at the college. 'The college says parents will still get grants so they can access childcare elsewhere but this nursery is a fantastic provision with really good facilities, equipment and staff. It is graded as good by Ofsted, at the highest level by Quality Counts, and it provides a holiday play scheme for local children.
'The campus borders Wythenshawe, which has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe. When we know there is a problem with so many teens not in employment, education and training we should be supporting them and not putting a further barrier in the way of their participation. It is hard enough to encourage disaffected learners back into education without then requiring them to make another journey to drop off their child on their way to college.
'The Government talks a lot about community cohesion and colleges have a key role to play in that. A college nursery can have a really positive impact with parenting classes and reading clubs by uniting the diverse communities local colleges serve. Children coming into nursery with their parents at a college see the education system as a positive role model.'
TEENAGE PARENTS
'Arguably, the provision of childcare is not a college's core business,' says Ms Pacey, 'but, in fact, for many students it is part of the package they need.
'I know from work I did at the Daycare Trust that one of the biggest challenges for teenage parents is finding somewhere trustworthy to leave their baby. A campus setting is ideal because parents can drop in between lectures.'
Student parents particularly want babycare provision on campus, according to Ms Smith, but because of statutory child:staff ratios this is the most expensive element of childcare to deliver. 'Women who have become pregnant during their studies want to breastfeed their children so they want them close at hand while students with slightly older children might want them cared for nearer home,' she says.
Yet the Glasgow College of Nautical Studies is planning to close the babyroom in the college nursery this autumn, followed by shutting the whole setting at the end of the next academic year. Jim Snell, deputy service and conditions officer for Unison in Glasgow, says, 'When we were first told of the proposal to close the nursery we argued that what the Government wants, when we are in this recession, is for people to come into further and higher education and gain new skills and improve their current skills, and parents would need access to the nursery.
'The college response was that the money would follow the students and they could take their children to other childcarers, but parents don't want their children to be disrupted.'
Ms Smith adds, 'Grant funding to students for childcare is totally inconsistent across all levels of education and between higher and further education.
'The NUS is calling for the childcare grants for higher education students to be raised from 85 per cent to 100 per cent and for the funding available to student parents studying full time in further education to be extended to those studying part time.
'The funding does not really mirror the real experience of people. A grant is available for parents who are full-time when the majority of student parents are part-time, so the situation is not reflecting their lives. Postgraduate students get nothing and quite often use their funding to pay for their childcare.'
Closing a nursery could have a detrimental effect on an institution, says Mrs Bertuchi.
'If, as a potential student, you are looking at a university or college and it closes its nursery, it is a double negative. It makes you think twice.'
The irony that it is often institutions that offer courses in early years and childcare that are closing their nurseries is not lost on Ms Pacey. 'I think these decisions to close are completely divorced from the academic work that is going on in the university. It is just purely a management decision - looking at the bottom line rather than the added value offered by having a nursery.
'It's a shame that you can learn about early years, but it can't be delivered on the campus.'
FURTHER INFORMATION
The 'Meet the Parents' report is at: http://resource.nusonline.co.uk/media/resource/NUS_SP_report_web.pdf