CYP Now - Training provider commits to expand childcare apprenticeships

Early years training provider Realise has committed to train more than 10,000 newly-qualified apprentices over the next five years to help nurseries cope with the expected rise in demand for places following the expansion of government-funded childcare hours over the coming year.

Estimates suggest demand for childcare could rise by 15 per cent due to reforms. Picture: Realise

The apprenticeship schemes will cover levels 2, 3 and 5 and be open to people who are over the age of 16 and are either already employed by an early years setting, looking to move out of unemployment into the sector or interested in transferring careers.

Part of Realise’s strategy to recruit new apprentices to the sector will focus around attracting more men to work in early education – currently, only around two per cent of the workforce are male.

Karen Derbyshire, operations director for early years at Realise, says that nurseries ramping up their apprenticeship provision was the most viable way for settings to cope with the new regulations, with estimates that demand for childcare could rise by 15 per cent, the equivalent of caring for 100,000 children full-time.

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