An official at the National College for Teaching and Leadership made an ‘error’ when asked for definitive statements on GCSE requirements for Early Years Educator (EYE) level 3 qualifications by Nursery World.
The advice from NCTL, the body responsible for improving quality in the early years workforce, contradicts statements from another official at NCTL given to awarding body Cache.
An NCTL official amended a Nursery World qualifications guide to read, ‘From September 2016, learners aged 16-19 will also require GCSE A*-C in maths and English on entry to an Early Years Educator course if their course is publicly funded.’
However, according to the Department for Education, which has since checked the information, this is wrong.
The correct position is that ‘From 2016/17 learners will need to have completed or be studying GCSE English and mathematics for their study programme to be funded.?’
This means 16-19-year-old non-apprentice students without the minimum C GCSE grades in English and maths will have to be studying these subjects to get funding. The grades are neither an entry nor an exit requirement, as if an EYE student fails to get the GCSE grades, there are no plans to ask them to repay the money, according to Cache. However, a student will not count in ratio at level 3 without them.
An DfE spokesman, who relayed the information from the NCTL, said, ‘We made a minor mistake when helping Nursery World to understand the Early Years Educator qualification, which we corrected as soon as the error was pointed out.’
NCTL does not set entry requirements in relation to the funding of learners aged 16-19 - this is done by the Education Funding Agency. Both bodies are executive agencies of the DfE.
Warren Cresswell, Funding and Stakeholder Manager at Cache, said, ‘It is imperative that routes into the workforce are not complicated further by mixed messages about an already complex public funding system from staff within the same government department.’
He also said, 'the future of the childcare workforce is uncertain’ due to the new rules over GCSEs which meant that ‘new adult EYE learner numbers have dropped significantly which is already leading to some recruitment shortages in the childcare workforce at Level 3.
‘Joined-up policy (between government departments) would enable public funding to be used to support workforce development in sectors and at particular levels that need it most,' he added.
‘Current major political party plans to increase free childcare will fail unless there is a growing workforce to meet demand, but at present GCSE requirements are preventing an increasing number of high quality practitioners from joining the childcare workforce.’
This ‘minor error’ comes on the back of contradictory information about apprenticeship frameworks being issued. The Federation for Industry Sector Skills and Standards, which accredits apprenticeship qualifications, said in February that it has ‘obtained agreement that the current SASE frameworks do not need to be amended and re-issued’ after removing the controversial ‘five year rule’ about the validity of GCSEs.
However, a spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills confirmed, ‘The Children and Young Person’s Workforce framework was reissued on 6 April 2015.’ It can be found here.