Nursery World - New standards 'put care quality at risk'

Government proposals for national standards in daycare that lower the qualifications required for staff could reduce the quality of care and create 'warehouses for the next generation', the chairman of a leading nursery organisation has warned. National Day Nurseries Association chairman Michael Thomp-son told a conference in London on day nurseries last week that he believed the Government wanted to expand childcare at the expense of standards. He said, 'It's like suggesting we'll get anyone with A-levels to teach.' This strategy might backfire, he warned, by failing to produce a movement of new recruits into the sector and prompting an exodus of practitioners qualified to NNEB or level 3 standard who felt disillusioned because their training had been devalued.

National Day Nurseries Association chairman Michael Thomp-son told a conference in London on day nurseries last week that he believed the Government wanted to expand childcare at the expense of standards. He said, 'It's like suggesting we'll get anyone with A-levels to teach.' This strategy might backfire, he warned, by failing to produce a movement of new recruits into the sector and prompting an exodus of practitioners qualified to NNEB or level 3 standard who felt disillusioned because their training had been devalued.

Instead, it was crucial for the Government to link the expansion of care to an expansion of trained and qualified childcarers. 'We are in danger of devaluing our finest asset, our staff, as has happened with the police and nursing,' Mr Thompson said. 'We should maintain the commitment to a level 3 qualification.'

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