Parents disagree with rural councils on quality of care

A research team from the Arkleton Centre for Rural Development Research at the University of Aberdeen found that local authority providers and schools emphasised the benefits of having qualified teachers and nursery nurses. Some parents agreed, seeing the involvement of teachers as a benchmark of quality and worrying that rural children might be allocated a second-class service, without teachers, to cut costs.

However, others regarded the enthusiasm and commitment of volunteers as more important than teaching qualifications and thought that involving parents could strengthen rural communities and reduce isolation.

The Scottish Executive's summary of the research, Interchange 69: Pre-School Educational Provision in Rural Areas, says that, 'Defining quality is, by its nature, a political process, and this reinforces the need to consult those for whom the provision is intended.' The researchers, who carried out their fieldwork between October 1998 and June 1999, found that in the most remote rural areas there were funded pre-school places for less than 50 per cent of the estimated number of four-year-olds, compared with 88 per cent for Scotland as a whole at the time. In such areas pre-school groups tended to be smaller and it was harder to staff them with qualified teachers or nursery nurses, while premises and resources cost more.