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Unison presses for early years review

Pressure is building on the Scottish Executive to instigate a review into early years education and the status and career pathway of nursery nurses, after the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee heard representations from the public service union Unison Scotland. The petitions committee of MSPs, whose members gave a warm reception to the demands from Unison representatives Carol Ball and Elizabeth Hunter, is writing to the Executive to seek its views on the issues raised in the union's 20,000-signature petition and the type of inquiry it is proposing.

The petitions committee of MSPs, whose members gave a warm reception to the demands from Unison representatives Carol Ball and Elizabeth Hunter, is writing to the Executive to seek its views on the issues raised in the union's 20,000-signature petition and the type of inquiry it is proposing.

The parliamentary committee is also writing to the charity Children in Scotland.

Carol Ball, who chairs Unison's nursery nurse working party, said she was heartened by the MSPs' response to her demand that early years education and childcare should be recognised as 'a separate profession within education provision as a whole'.

She said no timetable had been laid down for a response from the Executive, but she hoped to hear its reaction to the petition 'in the next month or so'.

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