The new qualification is seen as key to streamlining the current number of Level 3 qualifications and helping the sector meet the Government target that all early years staff should be qualified to Level 3 from 2015.
The target is currently an 'aim', but the Government is considering making it a 'requirement' - an intention first flagged up in the recently published Next Steps for Early Learning and Childcare - Building on the Ten-Year Strategy (see Nursery World, 5 February).
The plans were announced by Pauline Jones, Early Years National Programme Manager at the Children's Workforce Development Council, at the Nursery World conference, 'EYFS: Six Months On', held in London on 25 March and attended by more than 270 delegates from across the country.
Pauline Jones acknowledged the current complexity of the qualifications system, with its five related frameworks.
But, she added, 'try to envisage a world where there is one qualification. There would be so much clarity and we would be able to ensure the quality of that qualification much more easily than the situation we are currently in, where there are more than 300 qualifications.
'By developing one qualification that can be achieved in bite-size chunks, we believe we have the opportunity to overcome many of the issues that have been in the sector for some time.'
The second workforce target - to have an Early Years Professional (EYP) in every setting by 2015 - may too become 'a requirement' and will be no less easy to achieve.
Ms Jones said, 'We think we would need 20,000 Early Years Professionals by 2015 to enable every early years setting to have one EYP. A National Day Nurseries Association survey identified that currently, 19 per cent of PVI settings have someone with EYP status, so we have a long way to go. But what we have achieved so far is amazing, given the timescales.'
But a comment from the conference floor showed the extent to which financial pressures on providers may thwart Government goals. One early years provider said, 'Until the Government takes pay and conditions seriously and takes advice about what it really costs to run a nursery, then they [providers] will look at these qualifications and say "Why? Why bother?"'
