Early years trainers refuse apprentices without GCSE grades
Jess Brown
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Early years training providers are refusing to accept childcare workers onto early education apprenticeships if they have not gained good GCSE qualifications, it has emerged.
Last year, the government backtracked over plans to require those enrolling on Early Years Educator (EYE) Level 3 training to have A-C maths and English GCSEs before starting the course.
Instead, learners need the GCSE grades on completing their course to be counted in a setting's staff-to-child ratios.
But some training providers are requiring applicants to have already gained the GCSEs before accepting them on EYE Level 3 courses because of concerns that expecting learners to undertake academic and EYE studies concurrently increases the risk they will fail.
The introduction of the new qualification requirements from 1 September 2016 has led to a large fall in the number of people enrolling on EYE Level 3 courses, stoking fears of a recruitment crisis in childcare.
The Association of Early Learning Providers (AELP) said trainers were having to be cautious about who they accept onto EYE Level 3 courses because their income is affected if learners don't successfully complete the training.
Paul Warner, AELP policy director, said: "Providers don't receive all of their funding unless the learner successfully completes the training programme, including the achievement of good GCSEs in English and maths, so many simply can't afford to take the financial risk."
Warner called for more support for apprentices, and for the GCSE qualification requirements to be scrapped with learners assessed on "functional skills" instead.
"We believe that support should be in place to help childcare trainees and apprentices improve their attainment in these core subjects," he said.
"AELP has campaigned that improvement can be achieved via functional skills testing at any time rather than with GCSEs and their fixed exam sittings.
"Virtually all the new employer-led standards for apprenticeships recognise functional skills as a valid alternative to GCSEs and yet the government has so far resisted the call of the employers leading on the EYE standard to be able to design their standard the same way.
"In the light of the recruitment crisis, it is our view that a change should be made immediately."
Debbie Clarke, manager of Little Rascals nurseries in Tunbridge Wells, said she has difficulty recruiting enough staff with the required qualifications, and that the tough stance by trainers over the GCSE requirements has exacerbated this.
"The training companies are now insisting learners have maths and English before they start, because they're not guaranteed the income if learners don't get their maths and English during the qualification," she said.
"We work with five training companies, and there are only two that will actually push learners through their maths and English, because it's a funding issue for them. If there's a risk the learner isn't going to come out of it with the qualifications, they won't get paid for [delivering] the NVQ."
Clarke said she has one worker with A-levels, but without GCSE maths, and all but one training companiy has refused to take her on.
The EYE apprenticeship prepares learners to become early years educators, and enables them to work with children from birth to five years old, and count in a setting's ratio.
In 2014, then childcare minister Sam Gyimah announced a workforce strategy, which is expected to be published this autumn.
To read more about the qualifications change and the impact it is having on childcare recruitment, see the latest issue of CYP Now or click here
