Linda Pirie, AQNS board member, said experienced, older workers could be forced in to redundancy if they did not hold the correct 'paper qualifications' and did not want to study or sit exams again.
From the end of 2006, early education and childcare workers will be required to register with the Scottish Social Services Council in a move to improve quality and maintain standards.
Under the new criteria, applicants will be able to register as support workers, practitioners or lead practitioners/managers. They will be required to hold at least one qualification from a comprehensive list spanning the early years, health and education sectors.
But the move has angered Mrs Pirie. 'The support worker category includes a large number of mature workers, mainly women returnees aged 40-plus,' she told Nursery World. 'These women have many years' experience, an abundance of life skills and common sense.
Under the new system they will have to have formal qualifications but many do not wish to embark on formal studies, she said. 'Therefore the new criteria are effectively forcing them into redundancy.'
Ann McEwan, the owner and manager of ABC Nurseries, a chain of three nurseries based in the Scottish Borders and Cumbria for the past 15 years, holds an advanced diploma in childcare and education. She will not be able to carry on in the same position unless she takes another exam. 'If I was a registered nurse I could then qualify to be the lead practitioner. It's absolute nonsense,' she said.
However, Carole Wilkinson, SSSC chief executive, said most early years workers already held appropriate qualifications. 'I believe 20 per cent of the social care workforce holds an appropriate qualification, whereas in the early years and childcare sector 75 per cent do. That has to be applauded,' she said.
Ms Wilkinson said there would be anxieties over any new system but stressed that registration would be phased in over a number of years, giving people plenty of time to gain the necessary qualifications.
See www.sssc.uk.com/Registration/Other for information.
