Welcome to the latest edition of Training Today. I am sure you will notice a few changes in this edition of the magazine, including the news round-up section on page 4 and 'View from the bridge' on page 23, which gives early years practitioners in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the opportunity to have their say on a training-related issue affecting the sector in their country. Training the early years workforce was discussed in London last month at the first of four Early Years National Training Organisation regional conferences. Delegates, many of whom work for Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships in the South-east of England, voiced concerns that unless childcare workers - whether in a playgroup or day nursery, as a nursery nurse, working as a classroom assistant or a self-employed registered childminder, for example - receive a decent salary, they will have little or no incentive to undertake any further training - especially if they are expected to pay to go on the training courses out of their own pockets while knowing they will be unlikely to see any financial benefit.
Welcome to the latest edition of Training Today. I am sure you will notice a few changes in this edition of the magazine, including the news round-up section on page 4 and 'View from the bridge' on page 23, which gives early years practitioners in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the opportunity to have their say on a training-related issue affecting the sector in their country.
Training the early years workforce was discussed in London last month at the first of four Early Years National Training Organisation regional conferences. Delegates, many of whom work for Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships in the South-east of England, voiced concerns that unless childcare workers - whether in a playgroup or day nursery, as a nursery nurse, working as a classroom assistant or a self-employed registered childminder, for example - receive a decent salary, they will have little or no incentive to undertake any further training - especially if they are expected to pay to go on the training courses out of their own pockets while knowing they will be unlikely to see any financial benefit.
Hopefully the current Treasury-led cross-cutting review of the early years sector in England will bear this in mind. Let us also hope it remembers that investing in a child's early years will pay off in the long run, as will paying childcarers a decent salary.
If you are involved in training the early years sector and were not included in this edition of Training Today, please send your listings for the June 2002 edition to me at the address below. And don't forget to visit the Nursery World website at www.nursery-world.co.uk.
James Tweed, editor
