If early years care and education in the UK is to become among the best in the world, a radical reform of the workforce and qualifications structure is called for.
Nothing less will do, according to the Government's ten-year strategy for childcare. Among its many recommendations is that all daycare settings move towards being led by a graduate practitioner and that a new single qualifications framework is created to provide essential skills and a more flexible workforce.
An imminent consultation on children's workforce reform also underlines the need for an integrated army of professionals who are skilled, trusted and well-rewarded.
This new vision places a renewed emphasis on training, which many feel has fallen behind the times. Early years degrees are criticised for lacking a solid core of child development and practice experience that is vital to an understanding of the very young. Vocational and practice-based qualifications, on the other hand, tend to lack the theory dimension and are viewed as being fragmented and difficult to compare.
Education consultant Margaret Edgington says, 'There is cause for concern - not least in the area of NVQs. These are variable in content and rigour and are dependent on the quality of the setting the candidate is working in. It can be difficult to gauge the level of understanding an individual has achieved.'
With so many new qualifications competing for attention, the popularity of the NVQ may be waning. According to a recent workforce survey, the proportion of paid staff holding NVQ level 3 fell from 60 per cent of early years workers in 2001 to 51 per cent in 2003. While NVQs are about to be overhauled in line with the occupational standards review, it is hoped that their restructuring will reflect a need for more critical thinking.
Practice training may be vital but it needs to be balanced with other kinds of learning, such as knowledge of theories about children and their social and learning environments.
With so much emphasis now being placed on an integrated worker, a knowledge of child development has to underpin training. According to Professor Peter Moss, of the Thomas Coram Research Unit at London's Institute of Education, the UK needs to move to an integrated concept in the way that other countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Spain and New Zealand have already done.
The latter is aiming for a 100 per cent graduate profession by 2012.
'This professional workforce should be graduates - as it is in other countries - which should be involved in all areas of care with children under and over the age of three. They should make up 60 per cent of the workforce, the remainder being made up of workers with a qualification at least to level 3. These practitioners should be able to go on and obtain a professional qualification if they choose,' he says.
Higher level
Integration has significant implications for a holistic approach to childcare, where the practitioner effectively becomes a pedagogue. A higher level of training - which balances practice with knowledge of child development - is needed to achieve this. As the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) project highlights, outcomes for young children are far superior when team leaders have these skills and are educated to degree level.
Rosemary Murphy, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, corroborates this. 'EPPE has shown that quality practitioners make a big difference, and this is what we are fighting for,' she says. 'We are also moving towards the idea that we need graduates along the lines of a pedagogue, rather than thinking in terms of them being teachers. We need to think carefully about what we mean by early years teacher.'
Addressing the training needs of this kind of integrated work is far from simple. Claire Cameron, research officer at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, believes it is not just about educating practitioners to interact with other occupations, but about bridging the occupational divide between teachers and childcare workers.
'That means training a workforce to be multi-skilled,' she says. 'We need Government initiatives such as a graduate pilot scheme across the country, which can spread and develop. We need graduates whose expertise is not restricted to early years but who can work in other spheres such as residential care for young people.'
There also has to be scope for practitioners to expand their skills and training has to reflect the need for career ladders. Ms Murphy says, 'It can be difficult for practitioners to get to level 4. Finding the time to go to college after a 40-hour week is not easy. One of the challenges to delivering a graduate-led workforce is finding a way in which people can move up.'
By the same token, it is vital that those graduating with an early years degree and going straight into a place of work should have hands-on experience. 'We need degree courses that perhaps provide a year working in the industry - maybe as a sandwich course,' says Ms Murphy. 'Only in this way will graduates be equipped to work in senior positions in nurseries.'
The answer, argues Pamela Calder, chair of the Early Childhood Studies Degrees Network based at South Bank University, is the early childhood studies degree. The recent addition of a practitioner option makes it a well-rounded course, highly suited to integrated roles. The new option has been approved by the DfES and Sure Start Unit and complements the course work's mix of health, social work and psychology.
The early childhood studies degree has the potential to steal a march on the Diploma of Childcare and Education (DCE). Although the DCE was traditionally viewed as the 'best' course for those pursuing a career in early years, it is now widely recognised as a stepping stone to a degree and a profession as a teacher.
Ms Calder says, 'The early childhood studies degree answers all needs and we are aiming to attract as many 18-year-olds who want to work in the field of early childhood as possible. However, we still have to combat the problem that prospects of poor pay put off many candidates. At the moment most go on to do the PGCE - so they can become teachers. In this way we have a shortage of students who want to work in early years who have been educated to degree level.'
While Ms Murphy believes it will take more degree-willing candidates to lift childcare into one of the key professions, she says it is vital not to lose sight of the needs of those who wish to work their way up the career ladder.
'Progression can be difficult,' she says. We must accommodate those who leave school early but want to move up within childcare.'
Ms Edgington expects the new training for leaders of integrated centres to have a strong focus on the leadership of learning and teaching. 'Some of these leaders will not be qualified teachers, yet will be in charge of monitoring the quality of learning and teaching in their setting. I have always argued that a head teacher in such a centre must be a specialist early years teacher,' she says.
Slow process
With projections for a well-qualified workforce looking ten or 20 years into the future, it is clear that change is not going to happen overnight.
As Professor Moss points out, 'Restructuring and rethinking is a slow process, dependent in part on resources. It would also undoubtedly have a major impact on funding. The reason Sweden and Denmark spend 2 per cent of GDP on early childhood services is because of the high level of provision and high level of education of the workforce.'
Accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has estimated that the cost of raising the number of graduates working in UK childcare to 60 per cent and paying them in line with teachers, would cost an extra 21bn a year.
However, it also estimates that this would deliver benefits of between Pounds 12bn and 24bn in terms of improved health and reduced criminal behaviour.
It seems that if the UK wants to fulfil its ambition to move to a well-qualified workforce, it will have to invest in raising the status and career prospects of a profession which has for too long suffered from being second best. NW
Further information
* For Building an integrated workforce for a long-term vision of universal early education and care, written by Claire Cameron, and also for Universal Early Education and Care in 2020: costs, benefits and funding options by Pricewaterhouse Coopers for the Social Market Foundation and Daycare Trust, see www. daycaretrust.org.uk
* Pathways to the future - the strategic plan for early childhood education. See the New Zealand Ministry of Education website www.
minedu.govt.nz
* Choice for parents, the best start for children: a ten-year strategy for childcare. See www.dfes.gov.uk