In the policy paper Beyond Caring, published last week by the Daycare Trust, Peter Moss, professor of Early Childhood Provision at the University of Lon- don's Institute of Education, argues that successive Governments have neglected the childcare workforce for decades, both in structure and conditions, and that as a result 'there has been little new thinking and no major reforms to produce a workforce for the 21st century'. The result of this, he says, is 'a mouldering can of worms, which no Government really wants to open'.
Professor Moss, who is also a researcher at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, said the dilemma facing the Government was whether women would still want to want to work in childcare and the early years sector as they became better educated and had wider employment opportunities. He said that Britain should reform the sector by following the Danish model of pedagogues, where childcare workers are trained to degree level and earn more than twice as much, plus have a range of benefits unavailable to most UK workers.
Professor Moss said the fact that 97.5 per cent of the UK's 310,000 childcare workers are women reflects society's assumption that it is essentially 'women's work' and 'substitute mothering' instead of 'work that involves quite different relationships, practices and purposes to mothering'. He added, 'Because caring is seen as something that comes naturally to women, paid care work is assumed to be low skilled and of low intrinsic value: hence poor training, pay and other conditions.'
But Rosemary Murphy, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, disputed this assertion. She said, 'Who assumes that childcare workers are low-skilled and undervalued? I don't know of any parents who think this.
'The assumption appears to be that because childcarers are low paid, then they are undervalued. This is not the case. It would make more sense for childcare work to be compared to voluntary sector work, where people do valuable work for relatively low salaries, instead of continually comparing it to being paid for stacking shelves in Tesco's.'
Mrs Murphy also criticised the report for not questioning the Government policy of having children start school at a younger age. She said, 'You could afford high salaries for childcare staff if children aged from nought to six were kept in early years settings rather than being hoovered up into schools at the age of three, which inevitably makes childcare more expensive. The Government is undervaluing childcare workers and this is an unintended result of the route it has chosen to take.'
Catherine Ashton, Sure Start minister, described Professor Moss's report as 'a welcome contribution to discussion and debate on the development of early years and childcare services, and the vital role played by the people who work in them'. She pointed out that the aims of the Government's current recruitment campaign in England were to attract 'a wider and more diverse workforce' and see it grow by between 8 and 10 per cent.
The report costs 10 (including p&p) from the Daycare Trust, 21 St George's Road, London SE1 6ES (020 7840 3350).
