Nursery World - National daycare standards: Ups and downs

Concessions on staff qualification levels in nurseries mean little as long as training lags so far behind. Ruth Thomson reports

Childcare provision has boomed in recent years, while childcare training has failed to keep pace with the expansion, leaving the Government with a problem of simple mathematics: there are more childcare posts than well qualified childcarers prepared to fill them. As a result, pragmatism and compromise have dictated the final outcome of the national standards for staff qualifications in daycare settings in England.

The Government's original proposals that the manager be qualified to NVQ level 3 and 50 per cent of remaining staff to NVQ level 2 provoked widespread condemnation from early years professionals, fearful that the Government was 'dumbing down' standards, and prompted Nursery World to launch its 'Stop the drop in standards' campaign, as many local authorities were already requiring half the staff to be qualified to level 3.

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