Nursery World - Editor’s view

Liz Roberts looks at the lasting impact of the fall in numbers of Level 3 students

We can now see the full impact that the requirement for Level 3 early years practitioners to hold GCSE English and Maths at grade C or above has had.

As part 2 of our Workforce Strategy series and our news story in this issue of Nursery World show, the numbers of students finishing Level 3 courses halved from 2014, when the rule was implemented, to 2016.

The requirement has now been scrapped, to the relief of most, but the fallout from the policy is huge and will have detrimental effects on sector recruitment for quite some time.

Some 17,350 Level 3 practitioners qualified in 2016 compared to 35, 275 in 2014 – no wonder that nurseries were struggling and failing to find enough staff. Sector research indicates that the percentage of Level 3 staff in nurseries dropped from 83 per cent in 2015 to 75 per cent in 2016, which is a significant backward step.

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