The review of the national occupational standards is all about raising standards - both in terms of basic training and the potential for experienced practitioners to move onwards and up in their profession.
Like everything else, qualifications need to keep up with the times. The current standards and awards at levels 2 and 3 have been in use since 1998, and there have been many, wide-ranging changes in the sector since then.
The National Childcare Strategy has been unrolled with a huge growth in provision and an increasing need for well-trained and competent staff.
There has also been a dramatic move towards integrated services with more complex demands on the workforce. Local authorities and Primary Care Trusts are now placing greater emphasis on joined-up roles which require joined-up training and qualifications. This expansion of roles means practitioners are now looking for swifter career progression and the enhanced professional status and wages to go with it.
At the time of going to press, the new standards had yet to be approved by all four home countries - England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales - but employers, trainers and awarding bodies are already trying to anticipate what impact the changes will have.
National Occupational Standards are best-practice benchmarks that have to work for the whole of the UK and reflect current and emerging job roles.
They are designed for a range of purposes spanning job descriptions and person specifications, training, appraisals, target setting, NVQs and SVQs.
Standards should be used for all of these and not just seen as a basis for qualifications.
The review has identified major changes to the structures and job roles of many people within the sector. Employers are increasingly requiring the workforce to work flexibly across traditional occupational boundaries. For example, an individual may work in support of the Foundation Stage during part of the day and work in a breakfast club during other parts of the day or week. Other people take on a range of different job roles during their working day or week. A childminder may work in a nursery for part of the week as well as offering childminding services for children of all ages.
This flexibility has to be encompassed in some way by the occupational standards and has also to meet the needs of regulators such as Ofsted.
The review has identified a vast number of job roles that sit alongside or are integrated with the core work that forms the backbone of the sector, which is essentially caring for and educating young children. This may include work with older children including those with disabilities or special educational needs, or others requiring a wide variety of forms of intervention. Practitioners also work in support of health or social care professionals, increasingly basing their work in the community.
The new draft standards recognise these changes and place much more emphasis on communication and making relationships, professional development, risk assessment, children's rights and protection. They also continue to emphasise the importance of skilled staff knowing and understanding children's development across a wide age range. This enables practitioners to support and promote development, to recognise when there are potential problems and take steps to intervene as early as possible.
All these developments mean that NVQs and SVQs will change over the next year. Existing qualifications will continue to have currency and status but, as always, practitioners must keep up to date with their practice through continuing professional development.
'The new standards will relate to a wider range of job roles,' says Richard Dorrance, chief executive of the Council for Awards in Children's Care and Education (CACHE). 'The new qualifications will reflect this with a common core and optional units designed for different roles. There will still be specialists but it will be easier for people to change jobs because they won't have to start a new qualification from scratch. The common core will provide a basis.'
He adds: 'All of the existing awards will have to be redesigned over a period of time to accommodate the common core and reflect the increase in optional units - especially at level 3.'
Until new standards are approved it is difficult to confirm the details of changes but it is likely there will be a generic qualification covering the common core and then a range of additional modular qualifications which will be job specific. At all levels mandatory units will include children's development, communication, health, safety and protection, and reflection on or support for practice.
According to Mr Dorrance, changes to existing NVQs will be made fairly quickly. 'We can say that the first changes will appear by summer 2005, but it will take five to seven years for the changes to affect every qualification,' he says.
Mr Dorrance expects one of the most significant changes to be made to level 4. 'This will be worth less than it is now. Rather than being worth 240 credits - or the equivalent of two years of university study - it will only be worth a maximum 120 credits, equating to one year.
'We want to emphasise that current qualifications will not be out-of-date because of the new standard. Anyone with an existing award will need to keep up to date with best practice in keeping with the new standards.'
The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) corroborates that the standards underpinning the current NVQs will be replaced. Once the new standards are accredited the QCA has a heavy workload in front of it to map job functions to qualification units and then define what is needed to achieve the required outcomes.
Karen Brown, strategic manager, sectors, at the QCA, says, 'Both NVQs and SVQs will have mandatory units which will provide a critical theme for the sector and deliver a level of competency. The context of technical details for the specific job will come out of the optional units,' she says.
Ms Brown underlines that those studying for NVQs while the changes are going through will be given extensions to complete an updated course, if they so wish. 'Awarding bodies will be able to advise students on the best course of action, and they will also want to reassure them that there is no chance of existing awards losing their validity,' she says.
Once the changes are approved, the awarding bodies will have their work cut out in reviewing, writing and commissioning new syllabuses.
