Nursery World - Editor's view (314)

Margaret Hodge has returned to the early years sector to find that the issue of low pay for childcare staff is still very much live and kicking. She was tackled about the problems during her speech to the CACHE annual general meeting last week, when practitioners reacted to assertions from Ken Boston of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority that lack of career structure was the main reason for staff leaving the sector in their thirties (see News, page 4). The fact is that pay levels so low that it is impossible to support a family or buy a house drive people away from a job they love. Proper career structures are needed, but many practitioners have no grand ambitions and just want to do the vital work of caring for and educating young children for a decent financial reward.

The fact is that pay levels so low that it is impossible to support a family or buy a house drive people away from a job they love. Proper career structures are needed, but many practitioners have no grand ambitions and just want to do the vital work of caring for and educating young children for a decent financial reward.

Yet in the public sector, unions are fighting against term-time contracts leading to pay cuts, and the funding crisis in schools means that higher grades for senior teaching assistants are a remote prospect. In the private sector, wages are even lower and without Government subsidy there is little scope for significant improvement.

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