Nursery staff beingrecruited overseas

The drive is being spearheaded by Amanda Johnson, co-founder of the Teddies Nurseries chain who has now left the company. She has set up a new company bringing South African nursery staff to the UKand has gone into partnership with Psycad International Recruitment Services to run its British division.

The economic situation in South Africa means unemployment in the nursery sector is high and salaries are low, with nursery nurses earning the equivalent of approximately 200 a month. Their good qualifications make South African workers attractive propositions to UK employers.

Ms Johnson said, 'The calibre of our candidates is fantastic, but the places simply don't exist out there. After two or three bad experiences of unemployment, UK salaries look very attractive, which is good news, given the recruitment problems here.' Nursery nurses in South Africa study for an Educare diploma, which is divided into different grades in a similar way to NVQs in the UK. Educare N4 and N5 are equal to NVQ level 2, while N6 is a two-year, full-time course and equivalent to NVQ level 3 or the CACHE Diploma in Child Care and Education. A higher qualification, the N7, includes modules in subjects such as management and child psychology. Psycad has verified these qualifications with the National Academic Recognition Information Centre, the body that evaluates comparable qualifications between different countries.