Nursery World - Nursery Management: Qualifications

An awarding body, training providers, colleges and nursery owners
are united in their opinion that new GCSE rules designed to improve
standards aren't working. Hannah Crown investigates.

Changes to GCSE rules designed to raise standards in early years settings are doing the opposite, an investigation by Nursery World has found.

Training providers have reported drops of between 40 and 96 per cent in the number of students on Early Years Educator (EYE) courses across the country. Awarding body Cache, which has a 51 per cent share of the childcare qualifications market, estimates that the number of students doing its level 3 EYE diplomas (i.e. work and college-based courses) has dropped by half on last year.

Business development director Julie Hyde says, 'If we are comparing EYE against a legacy qualification it's about a 50 per cent drop. The impact will be a significant lack of level 3 provision. We all support the idea of raising standards, but there is a transition period that has not been taken into account. We are in danger of having a level 2 workforce with no level 3 managers - that is not what anybody wants.'

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