One in ten of our respondents has a teaching qualification, compared with 9 per cent last year, 4 per cent have early years degrees, the same proportion as last year, and 4 per cent have foundation degrees, compared with 2 per cent last year.
These practitioners with the higher qualifications seem mostly to be working at senior levels in Sure Start schemes and children's centres where they can command salaries commensurate with their qualifications, underlining concerns that the gap between the private and maintained sectors is widening.
Tricia Pritchard, professional officer with the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses, says, 'A two-tier job market in the childcare sector is something which was widely predicted. We hear from nursery managers that they just can't recruit and retain staff because they are leaving for much higher pay to work on Sure Start schemes and other similar Government initiatives.
'You have to wonder how sustainable these jobs are. Pay issues and the anomalies in salary are raised at every event I go to now, but yet we have no firm response from the Government.'
However, there is a clear commitment among staff to gain further qualifications. Just over 40 per cent of nursery nurses/nursery officers this year say they would like to increase their qualifications in order to get a more senior job.
While there has been a strengthening of this commitment in the private sector, where 29 per cent of employees express such ambitions compared with 26 per cent last year, the enthusiasm seems to have paled in the maintained sector. Only 27 per cent of staff working in local authority primary/nursery schools this year say they would like to take on further studies to advance their careers, compared with 36 per cent last year.