Decade of early years policies ‘failed to improve workforce quality’
Nina Jacobs
Friday, January 17, 2020
Nearly a decade of frequent policy changes by the government failed to attract enough workers with higher qualifications into the early years sector or improve the skills of the existing workforce, researchers have concluded.
A new report, Early Years Workforce Development in England, published by the Education Policy Institute (EPI), says many of these policies and programmes lacked the “necessary ingredients” to bring about sustained change to the workforce’s qualification levels and to the quality of provision.
Instead they represent a “missed opportunity” for real impact that a much-needed long-term vision and coherent strategy could bring to the early years sector, the report states.
The report, the second of its kind in a series investigating key topics for the early years, examines how the government can provide the right incentives for the sector to employ and retain highly qualified and skilled practitioners.
It looked at early years policies implemented since 2006 to understand the intended and actual impact behind them.
However, researchers found only the Graduate Leader Fund, introduced in 2007 to provide private, voluntary and independent settings with financial incentives to recruit graduates, demonstrated a “clear, positive effect” on the qualifications of the early years workforce.
From 2007 to 2011, a period in which £305m funding was ringfenced for the programme, the number of early years workers with a degree or equivalent increased significantly by 76 per cent, from 16,500 workers to 29,100.
There was also an increase in the number of workers holding a higher degree or other degree which rose by 13 per cent, from 5,200 workers to 5,900.
But the report highlights further policies such as that requiring practitioners obtaining a Level 3 qualification after September 2014 to have a grade C in GCSE English and maths together with those to expand childcare entitlements which “pulled the sector capacity in two different directions”.
“The early years sector has lived through a decade of frequent policy changes, many of which were short-lived, disconnected and implemented without extra resources to support the sector,” the report concludes.
It states the introduction of the GCSE requirements, intended to increase qualification levels, meant there were fewer workers available who had high enough qualification levels to meet the staff:child ratio requirements.
At the same time, the expansion of the entitlements such as increasing the childcare offer for three- and four-year olds from 15 to 30 hours, required more workers to be hired to staff the additional places or hours available.
The report also found changes in the workforce composition by qualifications were mixed after 2013.
Between 2013 and 2018, the proportion of workers holding a first degree or foundation degree was around 13 per cent while those with a diploma in higher education fell from 7.4 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
There was also a drop in the proportion of workers with NVQ Level 3 or equivalent qualifications from 40 per cent to 39 per cent.
Dr Sara Bonnetti, the report’s author, said the government should “draw lessons” from those policies that had been successful and develop a long-term plan for upskilling workers.
“Failure to secure the workforce could threaten the quality of early years provision, and risks widening the attainment gap,” she said.
Early years leaders supported the report’s call for a long-term workforce development strategy to address challenges faced by the sector in recruiting and retaining staff.
Liz Bayram, chief executive at the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years (PACEY), said high quality provision could not be sustained in a sector where many practitioners were receiving low incomes.
“This report reminds us that a properly funded, long-term workforce development strategy that supports more practitioners to grow their qualification levels and pays them a salary commensurate with the important job they do does work.
“We cannot continue to kid ourselves that high quality provision can be sustained in a sector where most practitioners are on such low incomes they can earn more in a supermarket and 44 per cent rely on some form of in-work benefit to make ends meet,” she said.
The Early Years Alliance (EYA) said the government needed to set out a clear workforce strategy to avoid another “lost decade”.
“What does it say about the government’s approach to the early years that this report found the last effective policy for improving the sector’s workforce qualifications was abandoned almost ten years ago?” said Neil Leitch, the alliance’s chief executive.
Responding to the report, the National Education Union (NEU) said while it showed early years provision had grown since 2010, it still suffered from “serious issues of quality”.
Kevin Courtney, NEU joint general secretary, said: “Government should learn the less of this report: serious change begins with funding, and with a sustained programme to improve workforce qualifications.”
